[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AN OVERVIEW OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2014 BUDGET PROPOSAL
AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS
AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-21
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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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
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARK TAKANO, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Technology
HON. THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky, Chair
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona SCOTT PETERS, California
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma DEREK KILMER, Washington
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Thomas Massie, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 8
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Frederica S. Wilson, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Technology, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
The Honorable Patrick Gallagher, Under Secretary of Commerce for
Standards and Technology; Director, National Institute of
Standards and Technology
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 14
Discussion....................................................... 27
AN OVERVIEW OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2014
BUDGET PROPOSAL AT THE
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas
Massie [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
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Chairman Massie. The Subcommittee on Technology will come
to order.
Good morning. Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``An
Overview of the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Proposal at the
National Institute of Standards and Technology.'' In front of
you are packets containing the written testimony, biographies,
and truth-and-testimony disclosures for today's witness panel.
I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening
statement.
Today, we examine one portion of the President's budget
proposal--the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for NIST. Last
week, I had the opportunity to visit NIST's campus in
Gaithersburg, Maryland, and to see a sample of ongoing research
activities. In my time there, I was able to visit the Net-Zero
Test Facility, the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology,
and the Center for Neutron Research. Dr. Gallagher, I want to
thank you and let you know that your staff took very good care
of me and my staff as well. And their enthusiasm for NIST's
work was apparent throughout my tour.
The Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for NIST totals $928
million, an increase of $177.5 million or almost 24 percent
from the Fiscal Year 2012 enacted level. Now, this Committee
has a long, bipartisan record of support for NIST and its
contributions to research and development, but I think I need
to repeat that figure. The President has requested a 24 percent
increase for NIST in Fiscal Year 2014. That type of increase in
a time of decreasing budgets will be very difficult to achieve
and require significant changes in other areas.
The requested increases would be devoted in large part to
bolster advanced manufacturing initiatives by NIST, as well as
in areas such as cybersecurity, disaster resilience, forensic
science, and broadband communications.
We are here today to learn more about the justification for
this request and I am appreciative of the opportunity to learn
more about how Fiscal Year 2014 funds would be prioritized by
NIST. I thank our witness, Dr. Gallagher, for his time today.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentlelady from
Florida, Ms. Wilson, for an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Massie follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Thomas Massie
Good Morning. I would like to welcome everyone to today's hearing.
Today we will examine the fiscal year 2014 budget request for the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
I would like to thank Dr. Gallagher for appearing before us today.
Today, we examine one portion of the President's budget proposal,
the fiscal year 2014 budget request for NIST. Last week I had the
opportunity to visit NIST's campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and to
see a sample of ongoing research activities. In my time there, I was
able to visit the Net Zero Test Facility, the Center for Nanoscale
Science and Technology, and the Center for Neutron Research. Dr.
Gallagher, I want you to know that your staff took good care of me, and
their enthusiasm for NIST's work was apparent throughout my tour.
The fiscal year 2014 budget request for NIST totals $928 million,
an increase of $177.5 million or almost 24 percent from the fiscal year
2012 enacted level.
Now this Committee has a long, bipartisan record of support for
NIST and its contributions to research and development. But I think I
need to repeat that figure. The President has requested a 24 percent
increase for NIST in fiscal year 2014. That type of increase in a time
of decreasing budgets will be very difficult to achieve, and require
significant changes in other areas.
The requested increases would be devoted in large part to bolster
advanced manufacturing initiatives by NIST, as well as in areas such as
cybersecurity, disaster resilience, forensic science, and broadband
communications.
We are here today to learn more about the justification for this
request, and I am appreciative of the opportunity to learn more about
how fiscal year 2014 funds would be prioritized by NIST. I thank our
witness, Dr. Gallagher, for his time today.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Massie, for holding this
morning's hearing to examine the Fiscal Year 2014 budget
request for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
I would also like to thank Dr. Gallagher for testifying today
and for his leadership in NIST. It is good to see you again,
Dr. Gallagher.
NIST is an economic engine for this Nation. For more than
100 years the Institute's broad and deep technical expertise
has advanced measurement science, standards, and technological
innovation, strengthening our manufacturing sector and boosting
innovation. In this time of painfully high unemployment, we
need NIST. We need NIST's expertise more than ever.
And this time in which developing nations are taking the
lead not only in assembling products, but also inventing
products, we need strategic investment in research,
development, and education. I am pleased that the President's
budget recognizes the importance of NIST and gives the agency a
prominent role in the Administration's efforts to revitalize
American manufacturing.
The Administration's budget includes a number of
initiatives that can strengthen and reinforce the competitive
position of the United States. For instance, the Advanced
Manufacturing Technology Consortia program that will create
public-private partnerships to address technical barriers that
are stopping the growth of advanced manufacturing here at home.
It simply makes sense to leverage Federal resources to bring
companies together to solve common challenges. It bolsters
innovation and creates jobs. And that is what we should be
concerned about: jobs, jobs, jobs.
The President's proposal also advances emerging fields such
as biomanufacturing and nanomanufacturing. This research will
provide a foundation for new and existing companies to
flourish, producing high-quality, high-paying jobs that will
remain with us over the long haul. Whether we like it or not,
the truth is that most of our competitors are putting
significant and targeted resources towards helping businesses,
small and large, accelerate the commercialization of innovative
technologies. They are doing it. I don't think we can afford to
just stand by and watch these companies set up shop somewhere
else. I don't think we can afford to just watch as these
technologies and jobs take hold somewhere else.
We need to support the Administration's proposal for a
National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. This proposal is
intended to help bridge the gap from research and development
to commercialization through proof-of-concept activities and
direct collaboration with industry. It is also intended to
build up the skills of our workforce, preparing students for
the manufacturing jobs of the future. I often worry about the
class of 2013, high school and college. While some questions
remain about these manufacturing institutes, I believe the
concept has merit and I am looking forward to learning more
about it today.
I am also interested in learning more about how the current
budget request will advance NIST's effort to make our
communities more resilient to natural disasters. I was born and
raised in South Florida. I have seen my fair share of the
devastation of severe weather. While we cannot stop hurricanes,
tornadoes, or earthquakes from happening, we can and must do
all that we can to make sure that our communities have the
capacity and the tools they need to respond and recover from
these events.
Mr. Chairman and I look forward to working with you and our
colleagues to ensure that NIST has the resources it needs to
fulfill its crucial role of promoting innovation, increasing
competitiveness, and enhancing our security. And I yield back
the balance of my time, two seconds.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wilson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ranking Minority Member Frederica S. Wilson
Thank you, Chairman Massie, for holding this morning's hearing to
examine the fiscal year 2014 budget request for the National Institute
of Standards and Technology. I'd also like to thank Dr. Gallagher for
testifying today and for his leadership at NIST. It's good to see you
again.
NIST is an economic engine for this nation. For more than 100
years, the institute's broad and deep technical expertise has advanced
measurement science, standards, and technological innovation--
strengthening our manufacturing sector and boosting innovation.
In this time of painfully high unemployment, we need NIST's
expertise more than ever. In this time in which developing nations are
taking the lead not only in assembling products but also in inventing
products, we need strategic investments in research, development, and
education.
I am pleased that the President's budget recognizes the importance
of NIST and gives the agency a prominent role in the Administration's
efforts to revitalize American manufacturing.
The Administration's budget includes a number of initiatives that
can strengthen and reinforce the competitive position of the United
States. For instance, the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia
program will create public-private partnerships to address technical
barriers that are stopping the growth of advanced manufacturing here at
home. It simply makes sense to leverage federal resources to bring
companies together to solve common challenges. It boosts innovation and
creates jobs.
The President's proposal also advances emerging fields such as
biomanufacturing and nanomanufacturing. This research will provide a
foundation for new and existing companies to flourish-producing high-
quality, high-paying jobs that will remain with us over the long-haul.
Whether we like it or not, the truth is, that most of our
competitors are putting significant and targeted resources towards
helping businesses--small and large--accelerate the commercialization
of innovative technologies. I don't think we can afford to just stand
by and watch those companies setup shop somewhere else. I don't think
we can afford to just watch as those technologies and jobs take hold
somewhere else. We need to support the Administration's proposal for a
National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.
This proposal is intended to help bridge the gap from research and
development to commercialization through proof-of-concept activities
and direct collaboration with industry. It is also intended to build up
the skills of our workforce--preparing students for the manufacturing
jobs of the future. While some questions remain about these
manufacturing institutes, I believe the concept has merit and I am
looking forward to learning more about it today.
I'm also interested in learning more about how the current budget
request will advance NIST's efforts to make our communities more
resilient to natural disasters. Born and raised in South Florida, I
have seen my fair share of the devastation of severe weather. While we
cannot stop hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes from happening, we
can and must do all that we can to make sure that our communities have
the capacity and the tools they need to respond and recover from these
events.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing and I look
forward to working with you and our colleagues to ensure that NIST has
the resources it needs to fulfill its crucial role: promoting
innovation, increasing our competitiveness, and enhancing our security.
Chairman Massie. Thank you, Ms. Wilson.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
At this time I would like to introduce our witness. Our
witness is Dr. Patrick Gallagher, the Under Secretary of
Commerce for Standards and Technology and the Director of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology. Dr. Gallagher
is the 14th Director of NIST and the first to hold the position
of Under Secretary of Commerce. He received his Ph.D. in
physics at the University of Pittsburgh. Thanks again to our
witness for being here this morning.
As our witness should know, spoken testimony is limited to
five minutes after which the Members of the Committee will have
five minutes each task questions. I now recognize Dr. Gallagher
to present his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE PATRICK GALLAGHER
UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR
STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY,
AND DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF
STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY
Dr. Gallagher. Chairman Massie, thank you very much for
this opportunity to be here today, and Ranking Member Wilson,
it is great to see both of you. And since this is my first
official event in front of the Subcommittee, let me
congratulate both of you on your leadership positions and to
say for the record that I am looking forward to working with
both of you.
Today, I would like to discuss and give you a quick
overview of the President's Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for
NIST. This budget reflects the important role that NIST plays
as part of the President's ``Plan to Make America a Magnet for
Jobs by Investing in Manufacturing.''
From transforming communities across the country into
global centers of manufacturing through the establishment of
the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation to
strengthening supply chains through MEP to supporting
innovative manufacturing technologies by investing in the R&D
of the NIST laboratories, the proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget
reflects NIST's role in the Administration's efforts to
strengthen manufacturing through critical investments in
research and development.
NIST's mission is to promote innovation and industrial
competitiveness through advancing measurement science,
standards, and technology and it is well-aligned with the
priority goals articulated by the President. The NIST budget is
comprised of three discretionary spending accounts, as well as
a mandatory proposal.
Mr. Chairman, the President's discretionary funding request
for $928.3 million reflects an increase of 177.5 million above
Fiscal Year 2012 enacted levels, and more than half of the
proposed increased funding would be focused on advanced
manufacturing research both at NIST laboratories and through
industry-led consortia. This budget was carefully crafted to
address pressing needs for standards and measurement work
principally in emerging technology areas and to provide the
seed funding to encourage industry and academia to come
together to address common technology problems that are too
large for individual institutions to tackle by itself.
The request for the laboratory programs of $693.7 million
recognizes the important role NIST labs play in advancing
innovation. The request is an increase of 126.7 million from
the Fiscal Year 2012 enacted level. Within the request, current
Administration priority areas targeted for budget increases
include advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, healthcare
information technology, disaster resilience, forensics,
advanced communications, and the NIST Centers of Excellence
Program. The request will help ensure that NIST laboratory
research, facilities, and service programs continue to work at
the cutting edge of science and will assist U.S. industry as
well as the broader science and engineering communities with
the measurements, data, and technologies they need to further
innovate and make sure the United States remains industrially
competitive.
The request for the NIST Industrial Technology Services
account is $174.5 million representing an increase of $46.1
from the Fiscal Year 2012 enacted level. The account includes
$153.1 million for the Hollings Manufacturing Extension
Partnership program, or MEP, and $25 million for the Advanced
Manufacturing Technology Consortia program, or AMTech. AMTech
will establish industry-led consortia to identify and
prioritize research projects supporting long-term industrial
research needs.
The Construction of Research Facilities request is $60
million. This is an increase of about $5 million. The increased
funding will allow NIST to reduce the backlog of maintenance
projects on its facilities and to improve the overall condition
of them. This construction request also provides for the first
year of a major project to renovate Wing 5 of the Building 1
laboratory complex at NIST's Boulder facility. This building
has been undergoing renovations in stages for some years now
and the continuation of this project is critical.
As part of the Administration's effort to revitalize
manufacturing, the budget proposes a $1 billion mandatory
account to establish a National Network for Manufacturing
Innovation, or NNMI, which aims to bring together companies,
universities, and community colleges.
Mr. Chairman, also included in this request are scientific
programmatic initiatives that are tied to the overarching
themes of this budget. In addition to the strong advanced
manufacturing request, the cybersecurity request for protecting
the Nation's cyber infrastructure is a top priority of the
Administration. The initiative will enable NIST to strengthen
its core cybersecurity R&D program that are the critical
foundation upon which our ability to effectively engage with
industry on cybersecurity is built.
The NIST laboratory programs, along with its outreach
efforts and standards development work, are dedicated to
providing U.S. industry with the tools they need to innovate
and compete and flourish in today's fierce global economy. And
I look forward to working with you and the Members of the
Committee.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gallagher follows:]
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Chairman Massie. I thank the witness for his testimony.
Thank you, Dr. Gallagher.
Reminding Members that the Committee rules limit
questioning to five minutes, the Chair will at this point open
the round of questions. And I will recognize myself for five
minutes.
So in your testimony you mentioned that there is $1 billion
in a mandatory fund to be provided for the manufacturing
initiatives. This is more than the annual budget for NIST, and
so my question is where--how will these programs occur if the
billion dollars is not provided and will this come from NIST,
the DOE, the DOD? Where will this billion dollars come from?
Dr. Gallagher. So thank you for the question. So the NNMI
proposal is designed to provide a one-time investment, not a
continuous investment, to create basically a research
infrastructure for the country. The research infrastructure is
designed actually to attract private sector, in other words,
industry's R&D funding. We are trying to create a condition
where a group of companies acting together can do something
that they would not be willing to do on their own.
The President's proposal would base the program at NIST.
The reason for that is we have a very broad vision and set the
context for NIST managing the program would be to enhance the
competitiveness of the country to look at all of the different
possible sectors as we ran the program. And as I envision it,
the funding would be available, you know, for some finite
period of time. It would go out as a set of grants to support
the formation of these institutes.
If that--that would require legislation, and I think this
Committee would likely play a key role in developing that
legislation. And your question is if that legislation does not
occur, where does the funding come from? And I think what would
happen, given the fact that these institutes seem to be filling
a key need, is we would have to leverage existing programs to
make that happen. And in fact, the Administration both last
year using DOD funding, combined with some funding from other
agencies--and the President announced his intent to do three
more institutes this year--you are going to be leveraging
existing programs at other agencies, and that is why the
Defense Department and DOE have been identified.
Chairman Massie. So--okay. I understand that the DOE and
the DOD may provide some fund if the billion dollars is not
provided for by Congress, but my follow-up question would be,
will NIST contribute any discretionary funding in Fiscal Year
2014 to those institutes?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, I think it would seem natural that at
some level we would, but again, without a specific program, it
would have to be in the context of our existing programs. And
so NIST participation in that context would probably have one
of two flavors. It could be supporting the industrial R&D in
measurement science, a core part of the NIST mission. That
would be very attractive because this is designed to be the
industry's concentration of R&D. I can't imagine who else NIST
would want to work with.
The other area, of course, is in the small and mid-sized
business. So the NIST MEP program is designed to provide that
outreach to small and mid-sized manufacturers, any institutes
will play probably a magnet store role. And when you have that
concentration of capability and large companies want to be
located near that, supply chains will be located near those big
companies. And I think there is a very natural role for the
NIST MEP program to play a supporting role.
So we think there would be a good match for NIST to
participate with the centers.
Chairman Massie. Okay. Thank you. I have another minute
here. I would briefly like to ask you about the Smart Grid
Interoperability Panel that was created in 2009. This is of
particular interest to me. I am interested in energy and the
efficient use of energy because for all the talk about
alternative energy, it is a lot cheaper to save energy than it
is to try and create it with alternate means.
So I understand that the leadership of the Smart Grid
Interoperability Panel has recently been handed over from NIST
to a nonprofit organization driven by the private sector. Can
you please explain in the brief time remaining what NIST's role
is in the continued development of the so-called Smart Grid,
and is NIST directly funding any Smart Grid activities in
Fiscal Year 2014?
Dr. Gallagher. So the quick answer, of course, is that NIST
will remain very involved with the private sector-led effort.
In the United States almost all standards efforts are led by
the private sector. And the mandate given to NIST is twofold.
One is to support those efforts and the other is to act as the
go-between between the standards bodies and Federal needs so
between the Energy Department, the energy regulators, and so
forth. So we would need to be--remain involved. Our role will
increasingly be technical, supplying the technical
underpinnings of those standards, whether they are data
communication standards or tested measurement standards. And we
do anticipate continuing to provide support to that effort in
'14 and beyond.
Chairman Massie. Just quickly if you could answer quickly,
how much money do you think will be spent in 2014 on the Smart
Grid from NIST?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, the amount that we have reallocated
mostly from internal reprioritization is between $3 to $4
million a year in both technical and coordination.
Chairman Massie. Okay. Thank you very much. My time is
expired.
And I now recognize Ms. Wilson for five minutes.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Gallagher, as you know, over the past several years our
Nation has experienced historic and devastating natural
disasters and numerous communities across America are still
recovering and rebuilding. Hurricane Sandy was the Nation's
costliest storm since Katrina, killing hundreds of people in
its path and causing billions of dollars in damage. I am
pleased to see that the budget request includes an additional
$5 million to support NIST's work in the area of disaster
resilience. Can you please describe this initiative and the
activities NIST intends to undertake to improve the performance
of buildings and infrastructure in the face of a disaster?
Dr. Gallagher. Thank you. I believe you know this is a
critical area, as you know, because of the potential impact it
has on so many. The NIST role actually ties to the answer I
just gave the Chairman, which is to support the standards
setting. And in this case, for resiliency, what we are often
talking about are standards that are written in a way that they
become model codes. In the United States building structures,
houses are regulated or managed if you will at the local level.
Local building codes determine the standard of performance that
we expect in our built infrastructure.
And the way we ensure the built infrastructure is protected
is twofold. One, we support, technically, a set of standards
that can be adopted by local jurisdictions. They are called
model codes. And two, we try to learn from experience.
Unfortunately, in the case of disasters, we learn when
something terrible has happened. And the NIST program is
designed to work with local communities, to understand why
certain types of damage was experienced in the face of a
natural disaster, whether it is earthquake, wind, fire, and to
basically reflect that new understanding by improving the
building code standards.
And this has become critically important, and the NIST
effort is designed to approach this from a multi-hazard
perspective so that we can quickly identify lessons learned,
come to an understanding about how do we improve our built
infrastructure, and then work with the buildings and code
communities to make those improvements.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you. One other question. I have a little
bit of time. I understand that the budget includes a $25
million increase to create Manufacturing Technology
Acceleration Centers, MTACs, as part of the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership, MEP program. As you know, small
businesses are the top job creators and the lifeblood of our
economy.
In your testimony, you described how this new program would
provide technology transition services to small manufacturers.
Please elaborate on this new program. Specifically, how will
these centers and their focus areas be selected? Also, how does
this program build upon or relate to the existing supply chain
and technology acceleration services being provided by the MEP
centers?
Dr. Gallagher. Thank you. So the Manufacturing Technology
Acceleration Centers are a concept that is based on your
observation, which is the small and mid-sized companies are
where most of the employment growth and job growth occur,
including manufacturing. It is also increasingly where the
innovation is occurring. You know, new technologies and
processes are being developed by small and mid-sized
manufacturers, and large companies don't support those
manufacturers in the way they did in the past. The relationship
between the big OEM manufacturers in the supply chain has
certainly changed over time, and that has resulted in changes
for MEP.
So what we are trying to do is, through a grant program,
issue a grant to an organization or center that would develop
services that are technical in nature and would be addressing a
particular supply chain. And this would--this--whatever--these
services, these--let's--let me give you an example. Let's say
we wanted to support advanced aerospace companies that want to
be suppliers into the aerospace industry. Well, if you want to
be a supplier to aerospace, you are going to have to learn how
to work in their environment, what their expectations are to
meet their certification requirements and have the tools and
quality assurance that you need to be an effective supplier in
aerospace.
What we would like to do is work with experts in the
aerospace industry to develop services that small--that can be
offered to small and mid-sized manufacturers that have this
interest. So the MTAC centers would develop this content and it
can be deployed through the entire national network of existing
MEP centers. That is the idea behind MTAC. It is a supply chain
focus, a technology focus for the MEP network.
Ms. Wilson. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Massie. Thank you very much. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Schweikert from Arizona for five minutes.
Mr. Schweikert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Doctor, what you get to do is fascinating and some of the
things you oversee, but I have always had first one global
question. Think of everything you oversee, everything that is
done at NIST. Can you walk me through some of the activities
that could be found nowhere else, no university, no tech
center, nowhere else that solely, solely exist at NIST?
Dr. Gallagher. I sure can. And I thank you for the
appreciation of the work. The most unique thing that you would
find it NIST that you would find nowhere else are those
activities that have been given to NIST and no one else. And
they actually go to our core mission, and that is we define the
basis of measurement for the United States----
Mr. Schweikert. Mr. Chairman, Doctor--okay. And that is
almost the constitutional carve-out.
Dr. Gallagher. That is correct.
Mr. Schweikert. But many of those measurements are
actually, you know, MIT or those--will help build the standards
but NIST will refine them and publish them?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, in the case of the actual measurement
standards, it is the research even underneath that is probably
unique to NIST. And so if you look at areas where NIST is--
leads the world in its scientific capability, it tends to be in
the areas where we have to be at the forefront because the
basis of a measurement--let's say the definition of time--has
to be more accurate than any application of that measurement.
And so we tend to be at the forefront in those particular
areas.
Mr. Schweikert. Okay. Mr. Chairman--Doctor, so--okay. The
measurement standards, what else?
Dr. Gallagher. The other areas would be ones that have
resulted from the standards coordination function. And they
tend to be in these system areas, so cybersecurity. The nature
of the cybersecurity research at NIST, because of the interface
between both the Government needs and industry tend to be quite
different than something you would find anywhere else.
Mr. Schweikert. And Doctor, you are telling me I could not
find that anywhere else in the Nation or in America?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, it is always dangerous to say that
because you are going to find cybersecurity research all over
the world in fact, but the composition of the research program
at NIST would look different. So it depends what you mean by
overlap.
Mr. Schweikert. And one of the natures of my question is so
often we sort of have I guess the pop culture term is mission
creep of NIST, you know, its core function of being, you know,
the czar of time and measurements and it is almost a
constitutional requirement. And yet we often ask you to do so
many other things and reach into other activities. And I am--
the more I am, you know, here in Congress, starting to wonder
should we actually be pushing you the other direction and focus
on your core competence and stay out of some of the other
affiliated activities?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, I don't know if you would have to push
us much because we try to stay close to our core competency as
well. I have always believed that as an agency, mission focus
is one of the most important things you maintain. Mission
creep----
Mr. Schweikert. But even some of the discussion we were
just having with the supply chain, I can take you to a dozen
universities around the country that literally have a mission
statement that sounded exactly like you just described.
Dr. Gallagher. But they don't have a mission to provide--in
fact, a lot of their capability in fact is working with NIST,
so----
Mr. Schweikert. But they maintain some of the--but their
mission statement, they are almost duplicative. Being from
Arizona where you think about our level of aerospace----
Dr. Gallagher. Right.
Mr. Schweikert. --and technology and the some of the--at
our engineering school at ASU and others where they are also
helping with some of the supply chain technology and being able
to, you know, become a provider--preferred providers and
mechanics. It was amusing only because of the irony of, I
think, I was hearing this on Tuesday from some folks from the
engineering school saying almost the exact same language you
just spoke.
Dr. Gallagher. But in the case of the MTAC program it is
not so much technical activity at the agency. It is a grant
program that would in fact--maybe it would fund work in Arizona
to provide--what we are providing is just the connection with
all these--the hundreds of thousands of manufacturers through--
--
Mr. Schweikert. And Mr. Chairman--Doctor, you don't believe
those relationships, those contacts happen in dozens of other
functions whether it be associations, that thing called the
Internet?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, I certainly believe that there is
many--I do believe there are many ways of providing that and
one of them is the NIST program to provide that outreach by
partnering with the States.
Mr. Schweikert. Okay.
Dr. Gallagher. You are right, that is not unique.
Mr. Schweikert. And I know it is always uncomfortable
having actually run a government agency at one time where we
are getting pulled because we, you know, our available talent
and getting pulled away from our core mission, and particularly
in a world with budget restraint and lots of talent and the
ability to share it and communicate it, it is something I am
going to continue to try to understand better in NIST, and you
may see me being a very aggressive advocate of support and
making sure you have the resources on your core and being very
concerned about moving away from that.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Massie. Now, we are in the second round of
questioning and to start again I will yield myself five
minutes.
Dr. Gallagher, one of the more interesting things that I
witnessed at--during my trip to NIST were the user facilities,
or the user centers, where outside researchers or even
commercial institutions could come and use your facilities, and
some of them are very unique such as the nuclear reactor that
provides a stream of neutrons to bombard things to give us
visibility into the invisible and also the micromachining tools
that use ion beams. These tools are very expensive and hard for
other people to acquire, and so I sort of like the library--
type model that you have there where outside parties can come
and use those.
Of course, one measurement of whether those tools are the
right tools to provide is whether the usage level of those. And
I was encouraged to hear that you are somewhat oversubscribed
for those tools. So my question is in trying to offset the cost
for those, there are fees charged to commercial entities. And
how close do those fees come to providing for the cost of those
tools and how could you get closer to break-even? I am almost
certain it doesn't break-even, but how could you come closer to
breakeven? Could you--should you maybe raise the price on those
if they are oversubscribed? Thank you.
Dr. Gallagher. So in the case of national user facilities
in the United States, there are two types of cost recovery that
can be done. One is federal--supporting federally funded
research. And both of the facilities you identified
predominantly are used by researchers that are funded by other
Federal agencies doing the work. And the long-standing U.S.
position there has been rather than charge one agency to pay
for the services at another through a user fee to basically--it
is the steward-partner model. The stewarding agency that runs
the facility operates the cost and provides the beam time on
purely a merit basis, on the quality of the proposal without
charging a fee. And it has been found over a long period of
time that that results in the decisions being based on the best
science for this limited capability rather than the capacity to
pay.
In the case of company use, when a company is going to use
a unique capability like this for their own purposes and
capture the data and not publish it--in other words, there is
no public benefit--we charge full cost recovery, including the
amortization of the facility. And I think the break-even or not
just depends on, you know, the fraction of work that is being
done proprietary, which tends not to be exceedingly high in
these cases. And part of that is by design. These cutting-edge
tools tend to be used most often in the precompetitive realm.
So----
Chairman Massie. So maybe you could price them at their
value instead of at their cost and use some of the--if there is
a differential, use some of the extra money to offset the
research costs.
Dr. Gallagher. Well, the cost recovery rules are in OMB's
Circular A-130. I am going to get that wrong, but in one of the
OMB circulars. And there are in fact two ways to recover cost.
One is by cost recovery, full cost, and the other is by market
value. The problem you run into with these unique facilities is
how do you determine the market value?
Chairman Massie. Right. Well, if it is oversubscribed, then
maybe it is underpriced. But I hear your point that some of the
subscriptions are from other research labs, not from commercial
entities.
Dr. Gallagher. Well, again, from a pure science
perspective, we like oversubscription because it means that the
selection committees are discriminating and really selecting
the best of the best. You actually--most grant programs like to
see that. So happy to talk to you more----
Chairman Massie. Okay.
Dr. Gallagher. --about that if----
Chairman Massie. Thank you. Thank you very much. That is
very sufficient.
So in the first round of questions we talked about the
Manufacturing Technology Acceleration Centers and how that is
going to work through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
program. So my question would be there is $25 million in the
budget to do this new manufacturing program. If that $25
million is not provided, do you anticipate using funds from the
MEP program to work with the MTAC program?
Dr. Gallagher. So let me try to clarify. The MTAC program
is part of MEP. It is a name we gave to basically grants that
are developing content for the MEP rather than the grants that
go to the centers that are delivering services. So it is
designed to augment what MEP does by giving it technology
services that have been developed by that sector. So it is
really part of the same program.
Chairman Massie. I hate to be a pessimist but if the
funding for the MEP program is the same this year as it was
last year, will you be able to fund the expansion of its role
into the MTAC program using existing MEP funds at all?
Dr. Gallagher. Not very much. So the--most of the funding
for the MEP goes to the existing centers, so the capacity to
develop new content would be quite limited. Obviously, we try
to do whatever we could working with private sector developers
to come up with content, but it would be limited.
Chairman Massie. Thank you. Thank you very much.
And now I yield five minutes to the Ranking Member, Ms.
Wilson. Ms. Wilson yields her time to Mr. Peters from
California.
Mr. Peters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I had a question about the health IT, information
technology. There was a $3 million initiative that you refer
to, and as I understand, this would expand on the existing
efforts in health IT at NIST and would advance work to develop
standards and testing for the meaningful use of electronic
health records. And I know meaningful use is a term from the
ACA with some meaning. You are ultimately going to want to
require interoperability between different systems, and I
wanted to sort of see if you could maybe elaborate on the
current efforts in interoperability and how the new initiative
would help the healthcare professionals and hospitals as they
are preparing to answer a lot of the open questions about how
to implement the ACA.
Dr. Gallagher. That is a great question and the NIST role
has been to support the functioning of health information
technology. And in the early phases, a lot of what our work was
promoting the testing tools and validation tools that
demonstrated meaningful use. And the idea was to drive the
performance of these systems by making sure that they were put
into practice by doctors and physicians. So showing that it
could, you know, pull up prescription information and be
disseminated back to the pharmacy and so forth.
Increasingly, now, you are going from sort of stand-alone
information technology to a very broad and diffuse system. So
as the health IT program matures, interoperability across
platforms is going to become a major driver, and that is the
next phase of the health IT program. The request is to support
the NIST effort to develop compliance tools and validation
tools to test the code and function that industry is
developing. It is actually not an augmentation of program. The
NIST program to date has not received any base funding. It was
actually fully supported by one-time Recovery Act funding that
in fact expires the end of this year and a limited amount of
reprogramming we were able to do from within the agency.
Mr. Peters. So--and just to follow up and to clarify, one
of the things that is exciting and happening a lot in San Diego
is the development of wireless health, digital health. The
opportunity say, for instance, to monitor a person's cardiac
performance or their glucose levels from a remote location that
might save money on things like office visits or emergency
ambulance rides or emergency room stays. One of the things we
are going to have to think about is how to make those systems
mesh with these records systems. And I want to know kind of is
that part of your effort or is that something you anticipate
getting involved in?
Dr. Gallagher. That is very much part of the effort both
from the functionality and from the security and privacy
aspects that are going to come with that kind of technology.
Mr. Peters. Right. Well, I wish you the best. It is a lot
of opportunity. I believe you can only cut doctors' pay so much
and raise taxes so much. A lot of what innovation can provide
is new and cheaper ways to accomplish the goals that really
will reduce the healthcare costs and that will depend a lot, as
you know, on the ability of NIST to set standards that everyone
can work off of as they innovate. So I appreciate your being
here today. Thank you.
Dr. Gallagher. Thank you.
Chairman Massie. I am now honored to recognize for five
minutes the Chairman of the full Committee, Chairman Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Gallagher, first of all, thank you for your commitment
to public service, which has extended over many years. That is
rare, but admirable.
I have a couple questions. The first is in Fiscal Year 2013
and in Fiscal Year 2014 how much money do you anticipate will
be spent by NIST in implementing the Administration's February
Executive Order on cybersecurity?
Dr. Gallagher. So that is--we haven't scraped up a separate
budget account to track that closely----
Chairman Smith. Actually, that was my next question. What
accounts is it going to come from?
Dr. Gallagher. It is going to come--it is largely
leveraging our work in our cybersecurity division.
Chairman Smith. If you don't know 2014, what about 2013?
Dr. Gallagher. Roughly for this year----
Chairman Smith. Yes.
Dr. Gallagher. --which is sort of the primary scope of the
Executive Order, it is about $3 million that we anticipate.
That sounds amazingly small given the tasking that was in the
Executive Order, but the magic sauce is that we really want
industry to develop this framework. And so most of those costs
are supporting the coordination and sort of pulling together
all of the material coming in from all of these sectors and
managing the discussions that will help pull the framework
together.
Chairman Smith. So you are going to try to leverage that $3
million and increase it exponentially through the private
sector?
Dr. Gallagher. As far as we can.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Gosh, you are right. That seems an
awfully small amount. What about 2014, about the same, more?
What would you expect?
Dr. Gallagher. So I think that looking in the out-years I
envision the framework that is being developed. It cannot be a
one-time develop-and-stop. The technology we are talking about
is too dynamic. What I really hope happens is something akin to
Smart Grid where the--this--as we pull this together the first
time, the private sector begins to continuously manage and
fine-tune this framework. That will actually drive the NIST
technical programs because that will result in questions about,
you know, how do we address identity management or roots of
trust or better cryptography or other forms of technical
solutions that that industry will need.
And that is actually reflected in our '14 request that $8
million of R&D base is designed to support what is becoming a
very stretched out technical capability at NIST.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you.
Next question, different subject. In regard to these new
manufacturing centers, what metrics would you recommend that we
use to evaluate these programs?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, the ultimate goal is a long-term one.
It should increase the rate of innovation by the participating
companies. This is about creating the modern equivalent of Bell
Labs. You are trying to get a group of companies collaborating
and sharing and leveraging each other to do what used to be
done by large, vertically integrated monopolies. And you should
see the same kind of innovation. In the short-term, what I hope
you see is this incentivizes an increase in private sector
investment in R&D. It pulls their investments upstream.
Chairman Smith. But both regarding current programs and, as
you said, the proposed augmented programs, how do you evaluate
them? Are there any specific metrics, any specific data we
ought to be looking for to gauge their success?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, I mean so, you know, measuring
technology's success is always a tricky thing. We have
economists who try to study that because the ideas diffuse into
different products. You can certainly look at rates of IP
generation and patent filings. You can look at new company
startups that are going to happen as a result of this. In some
cases, one of the problems is that some of the most exciting
things a company pulls in and they don't tell us about--in
fact, sometimes we know the most exciting work is when they
stop telling us about it--and in some cases you don't see the
payoff until quite a bit later as you see new products and
services going in.
So I think from a measurement perspective, how do we
measure success, it is going to have be a layered set of
things: some early indicators that indicate that this is
starting to be pulled together and then we are going to have to
continue to monitor this for a long time to see some of the
economic payoffs in markets and new products and services and
so forth.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Gallagher.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Massie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I now yield five minutes to Ranking Member, Ms. Wilson.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Gallagher, in your testimony you mentioned the need to
support the manufacture of emerging technologies, including
biomanufacturing. Specifically, you discussed efforts that
could help create new manufacturing paradigms for using cells
as factories for fuel, pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals.
These efforts align with the White House's report, the National
Bioeconomy Blueprint, a strategic plan to help the Nation
realize the potential of the economic activity fueled by
research and innovation in the bioeconomy.
Would you please describe your efforts in biomanufacturing
and how these activities will help the Nation attain the
benefits of the bioeconomy?
Dr. Gallagher. Thank you. I would be happy to. Of course,
you know, the explosion of understanding in bioscience is
probably the most dramatic scientific development in my career.
It has been a game-changer. The NIST role is very simple. It is
our core mission. It is to advance the measurement science in
biotechnology and particularly the measurement science that
controls our--the adoption of this technology. And what I think
it means and what the focus of our request is really in two
areas. One is the production using biology to produce things is
becoming mainstream. It is becoming a manufacturing process.
And we do not have the process measurement tools to control and
reproducibly, repeatedly, reliably produce high-quality
materials. If we can't do that, these things will never achieve
the scale and the cost reduction of market to make it a viable
production technology.
And the second area where measurements are playing a major
role is in supporting the demonstration of safety and efficacy.
And you see this no more clearly in the pharmaceutical area
where the pace of technological development, our ability to,
let's say, make a new vaccine is much, much faster now than our
capacity to regulate it and demonstrate its safety and
efficacy. And you see this increasing mismatch. And one of the
things we talk about very closely with FDA and others is can we
provide a rich measurement so we can understand the biomolecule
that we have produced in a way that would really facilitate a
rapid and effective, you know, protection of the public as
well.
So both in the regulation and the production we think our--
the maturity of measurement science is one of the limiting
steps, and that would be the area that NIST would focus in.
Ms. Wilson. That is fantastic. My other question, as part
of the budget request, you are proposing $20 million for the
creation of four NIST Centers of Excellence. The budget request
describes these centers as ``interdisciplinary environments
where NIST academic and industry researchers will collaborate
on basic and applied research focused on innovations and
measurement science and new technology development.''
Certainly, the success of NIST current research collaborations
with the University of Colorado and the University of Maryland
is in some part due to the presence of NIST and its scientists
in these geographic locations. How is NIST planning to ensure
the active and full participation of its scientists in these
proposed Centers of Excellence? And what research areas do you
envision these centers focusing on? And do you plan to put one
in Miami?
Dr. Gallagher. We hope Miami submits a great proposal. So
we would like to do this competitively, and the Centers of
Excellence program is very simple. It is designed to facilitate
a partnership to expand the effectiveness of NIST's mission. It
is kind of a selfish initiative. This is about making NIST do
its core mission better. The example you gave about JILA at the
University of Colorado is a great example. For more than 50
years, we have been able to sustain with NIST staff working
right alongside top academic researchers a state-of-the-art
effort in research that is essential to our core mission:
producing better clocks and understanding time and some of the
quantum measurement. It has allowed us to be at the forefront.
And I don't think that example is unique. I think that
there are many cases where rather than NIST simply going into
its labs and doing it by itself, by working with others in
partnership, we actually achieve our mission better.
There is a lot of competition for what the area--the best
area can be and so we are going to both compete this internally
to identify the areas of--that offer the most, and that is how
we involve our scientists--offer the most engagement and
benefit. It could be biosciences, which is a big growth area
for NIST. It could be an environment where we are working much
closer with industry. And then once we have identified the
technical area where we think we get the most mission impact,
we are going to do an open competition where universities and
other stakeholders can propose and give us their ideas for how
a partnership would be most effective. And so we certainly hope
Miami is going to be a participant or any other area be a
participant in that competitive process.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you. That is exciting.
Chairman Massie. Thank you very much.
I now yield five minutes to Mr. Hultgren from Illinois.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you so much for being here. A couple questions.
First, in the Fiscal Year 2014 NIST budget request, more
than half of the proposed increase in funding would be focused
on advanced manufacturing efforts. While recognizing
manufacturing is very important to our Nation and economy, a
lot of this new funding is focused in areas of technology and
knowledge transfer. I am concerned that the core long-term
research that supports manufacturing is going to be left behind
as the Institute advances initiatives that provide more short-
term band aids. When the infusion of cash has gone out the
door, are you confident we will have not lost focus on longer-
term needs in manufacturing?
Dr. Gallagher. So I may not understand the concern because
the majority of the NIST funding is in fact in long-term areas.
It is core research in measurement science that is related to
the highest growth, in other words, the newest technology areas
in advanced manufacturing. So it is enhancing our capacity to
support the metrology or measurement science needed for nano--
production of nano materials or biomaterials or for some of the
standards support we are going to have to do for some of the
advanced system integration and smart manufacturing and smart--
so, you know, it looks like a big refocus for NIST into
manufacturing, but remember, NIST, since 1901, has sort of been
industry's national lab. We--the truth of the matter is almost
all of NIST has been related to manufacturing in one way or
another for its entire history.
And so this program is really focused on developing the
core capacity in our laboratory program where very much part of
our core mission so that we can support what is the fastest-
moving areas of industry.
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, my--I am a broken record here. Fighting
for research and fighting for what only we can do and what
other--private sector can't do, the free market can't do and
where I feel like when we have got extra resources, I think it
is great to get more into the application and into the
applying. My focus is to make sure that we are not taking money
away that should go to research when that money is so limited.
Let me go on to another question. How does NIST balance
short-term, low-risk, low-reward research projects versus long-
term, high-risk, high-reward research projects when making
funding decisions? And just kind of a follow-up on that--or a
couple of follow-ups--how does NIST determine the proportion of
basic research versus applied research projects when allocating
funding? And I wonder is there a balance that, as Director, you
look to maintain across your activities between the more
fundamental versus the more applied type of work that NIST
funds?
Dr. Gallagher. So the lens I always use for those decisions
is our mission effectiveness. And that tends to mean that a
large proportion of our work is actually in very basic areas.
And that actually touches on the point you raised, which is
uniqueness. That is the role that we can play that others will
not play. Industry is taken to very short-cycle research. So it
would not make sense for NIST to be heavily involved in very
applied research or development.
The mix I think comes from relevance. It wouldn't do any
good for NIST to have this beautiful academic research that was
irrelevant to application and industry, and so the balance
tends to come exclusively from making sure we have the capacity
to do that cutting-edge research, to stay ahead of the
measurement science or this very core NIST mission, but also
have an understanding of how that measurement science is
applied in real world technology so that the translation is
effective.
Mr. Hultgren. My encouragement in that is just to--I know
that is an always-changing balance, but especially when
resources are tight to have it focused on that basic research
and research again that no one else can do. And then the
applied research is always an option when there is additional
resources, but we have got to make sure that we have got that
core mission in place.
Let me move on still. My time is limited. But wondering
what NIST is doing to measure and evaluate the economic impact
of its programs.
Dr. Gallagher. So we have a program that does--in fact has
developed sort of one of the leading methodologies for looking
at economic impact of its work. As you--as I was pointing out
earlier, that is a complicated business, but we will routinely
take several of our programs a year and then do a retrospective
economic analysis to ascertain the economic payoff, the
economic benefit. And of course with such a diverse agency,
these tend to be rather diverse studies in terms of how we do
that.
We are--the other way we do that is by industry validation.
The Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology, our leading
advisory committee, is made up predominantly of chief
technology officers at that level from companies, and we
routinely ask them to make sure that our work is relevant to
them. That is not economic study but it is a relevancy
assessment if you will.
Mr. Hultgren. Okay. I just have a few seconds left, but if
I can, I got here a little bit late and just would love to get
your thoughts. Brain science is something very interesting to
me, very concerning to me of some of the diseases. How do we
improve the understanding and treatment of autism, Alzheimer's,
and other neurological disorders? And what role do you see NIST
playing in standards and technology surrounding various drug
compounds or other therapeutics that could help us improve
people's lives in the long run?
Dr. Gallagher. Well, I appreciate the question. It--you
know, and this is going to sound like a broken record, too. I
think our role is actually in the measurement science piece of
this. In fact, we are already getting a lot of demand from both
universities, companies, and other Federal agencies to support
some of the very difficult, very challenging measurements
associated with neurological disease, understanding brain
function, measuring brain function, measuring misfolded
proteins, understanding--these are areas that--where the--our
ability to measure, particularly measure in living beings and
not under laboratory conditions is very immature. And so that
is one of the areas--that is why biosciences has come up as an
area where we have really got to come up to speed in supporting
those advances in measurement science.
Mr. Hultgren. I agree. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your indulgence. I
yield back.
Chairman Massie. Thank you very much for your questions.
We are going to do at least a third round of questions and
I will begin by yielding myself another five minutes.
My first question would be--and I want to ask a series of
short questions and I don't require anything but short answers.
When you talk about cybersecurity funding at NIST, what portion
of that should be public domain and what portion of that should
be classified? And is NIST really the right place to be doing
cybersecurity research or should we be doing it in a more
closed environment?
Dr. Gallagher. So NIST is the place where you would want to
put the non-classified work. You know, you have got to have
capability to develop--the capability to protect in commercial
technology. So if all the research is classified, then the
translation to practice and putting it into industry when it is
global markets is actually hampered. And so the NIST role is
almost all unclassified.
Chairman Massie. Okay. That is a great lead-in to my next
question, which is it seems like the rates of technology
transfer are higher, and I am asking this question because this
might be one of the metrics of success at an institution such
as NIST. But it seems like the rates of technology transfer are
higher at universities, particularly research universities like
MIT or Caltech than they are at NIST. And what could you do to
improve the rates of technology transfer at NIST?
Dr. Gallagher. So we are actually very actively trying to
increase rates of technology transfer at NIST by targeting our
SBIR program, making it more focused, by promoting tech
transfer by our research staff and making sure that this is a
valued activity. But I want to emphasize, you know, the role of
NIST is to drive things into practice, but it will not look the
same way that measuring entrepreneurial startups would look for
a major university. We don't--you know, our role is not to have
Federal employees go off and start companies and then come back
and do some of those activities.
So what we are trying to do is work with all the--in fact,
all of the Federal agencies to broaden and develop a more
nuanced understanding of tech transfer means. And so NIST has
been working with OMB and other Federal agencies to--and we
would like to actually work with you on that as well.
Chairman Massie. So you keep leading me to my next
question. You must be reading my mind or you have a camera up
here. My next question concerns SBIRs and I have some
experience in my private background of working with SBIRs. And
my question to you would be, as Congress here, we sort of
dictate how much extramural and intramural spending that you
can do, and as far as the SBIR program goes, I would like your
personal opinion on would you rather see more funding toward
SBIRs and less on your, for instance, intramural programs? Or
would you rather see it the other way around? Or have we, as
Congressmen, achieved the perfect balance in giving you that
money and dictating how much is intramural and extramural?
Dr. Gallagher. That is one of those eye-of-the-beholder
questions. It depends. So clearly, we like the--and NIST is
predominantly intramural, and our SBIR program is consequently
quite small. I think we are fairly close to the right answer. I
haven't had a major desire to see it move one way or the other.
I am of the belief, though, that we can do much more to make
sure that the SBIR funds that are allocated are much more
effective. And that has been the big improvement we have been
focused on is you need to step back and strategically look at
that investment. It is quite unique. It is one of the only
investments we make into innovative, small, startup companies.
And I would like to see it punch its weight more.
Chairman Massie. And my final question in this series is
NIST has impressive rates of employee and staff retention. It
seems like when people go to NIST, they like it and they don't
leave. And that allows you to do long-term projects that would
be harder to do with a lot of turnover. On the other hand,
university--the university model is that you kick them out of
the nest and you don't want too much retention because then you
kind of reach this stasis. So how do you avoid getting into a
rut at NIST when you have such great employee and staff
retention?
Dr. Gallagher. Yes, you are exactly right. For an agency
that has to have long-term research roots, the stability is in
fact very desirable. It is actually quite competitive, and so
any other science--you also want churn. You want this lifeblood
of new, young people coming right out of school with fresh
ideas. And so it has been very important for us to have a very
aggressive postdoc program, to have guest researcher programs,
and to have this fluidity of new ideas and engagement while
having a core cadre of senior scientists that in fact are
there. That is a perpetual management challenge that we manage
all the time but it is very important.
Chairman Massie. Thank you, Dr. Gallagher.
And I yield five minutes to Ranking Member, Ms. Wilson.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Chair Massie.
Dr. Gallagher, one of my colleagues expressed concern about
``mission creep'' at NIST. However, as I recall the mission of
NIST, it is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial
competitiveness by advancing measurement science standards and
technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve
our quality of life. I believe that this is a broad mission and
I don't believe the budget request is pushing NIST outside of
its core competencies. Would you agree with that? And do you
believe the budget request reflects the mission of NIST?
Dr. Gallagher. Yes, I would in the strongest possible terms
agree. I think NIST has been true to its mission. Its mission
is broad. It includes not only core basic research and
measurement science, but supports the small to mid-sized
manufacturers, includes the primary responsibility for tech
transfer regulation in the United States. I think--and we hold
true to that. The challenge we always face is given that broad
mission with limited resources, how do you set effective
priorities? But I believe wholeheartedly that one of the
secrets of success to NIST, you know, now well over 110 years
old, is this: it has been true to its mission from the
beginning.
Ms. Wilson. Okay. Just another question. The release of the
National Research Council's Forensic Science Report in 2009,
which concluded that forensic system--science system in this
country has serious problems served as a wakeup call and has
prompted discussions throughout the Federal Government and the
stakeholder community about how best to improve forensic
science research and practice. I am pleased that the budget
request highlights your efforts in forensic science. Can you
tell us more about what activities NIST intends to undertake
related to forensic science in Fiscal Year 2014 and how NIST is
partnering with the Department of Justice to improve forensic
science?
Dr. Gallagher. Thank you. I--you know, NIST--it is
interesting. NIST has actually been involved with forensic
science for most of its history. NIST scientists actually
predated the establishment of the FBI crime lab and helped work
to establish it. NIST worked on the Lindenberg case. So we have
actually had a long record here, and the role in fact is our
core mission. It is to provide the measurement science
underpinnings for forensic measurement.
The best example today is DNA, which was held up by the
Academy as one of the very effective types of forensic
measurement. The NIST staff work--you know, had worked with the
community to define the core measurement methodology and sort
of the protocols and standards that are used by DNA crime labs,
the--and make that technique so reliable.
So realizing that that was a model, the announcement we
have just had, the working arrangement between NIST and the
Department of Justice to strengthen that. And basically, it
will be formalized through a joint commission that will be co-
chaired by the Justice Department and NIST. It will bring
together a broad community of practice from scientists and
laboratory officials to criminal prosecutors, defense attorneys
and judges. And the goal is twofold. At NIST, our
responsibility is to look at areas where the measurement
science underpinnings of a forensic technique are not well
established. And those tend to be what you might consider a
low-tech measurement. How do you compare--what is the
reliability of comparing a tire imprint left at a crime scene
with a tire and how unique is that measurement and how degraded
before you can't say anything about it? It could be in blood
serum, it could be in chemical measurements and so forth.
So our job will be to do the measurement science and then
work with the community of practice to turn that into the types
of protocols, standards for laboratories, maybe certification
requirements for the expertise of the personnel that do those
measurements. And those can be adopted at the state and local
level and then the Justice Department will decide whether they
will be applicable for Federal crime labs under their
jurisdiction.
Ms. Wilson. Just let me--I just need to make a comment.
Every second, this is so exciting. And I know that the people
who work with you and collaborate with you and the people at
NIST and--have the most exciting lives in all of this research.
This is just amazing. And thank you so much for all that you do
for this Nation. Thank you.
Chairman Massie. Thank you, Ms. Wilson.
I would like to thank Dr. Gallagher for his valuable
testimony today and for having so much stamina undergoing three
rounds of questioning being the only witness here before us. I
thought your answers were excellent. And I also want to thank
you and your staff for hosting our visit to NIST a couple weeks
ago.
I would like to thank the Members for their questions and
remind them that the record will remain open for two weeks for
additional comments and written questions from Members.
Dr. Gallagher is excused and this hearing is adjourned.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:10 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]