[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT'S
FISCAL YEAR 2015
BUDGET REQUEST FOR SCIENCE AGENCIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 26, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-69
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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 COLLINS, New York
VACANCY
C O N T E N T S
March 26, 2014
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................................................ 5
Written Statement............................................ 6
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Witnesses:
The Honorable Dr. John Holdren, Director, Office of Science and
Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
Oral Statement............................................... 10
Written Statement............................................ 12
Discussion....................................................... 27
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Dr. John Holdren, Director, Office of Science and
Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President........... 68
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Progress Report on Coordinating Federal Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education.................. 102
A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT'S
FISCAL YEAR 2015
BUDGET REQUEST FOR SCIENCE AGENCIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2014
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology will come to order.
Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``A Review of the
President's Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Request for Science
Agencies.'' I am going to recognize myself for an opening
statement and then the Ranking Member for her opening
statement.
The topic of today's hearing is the President's budget
request for the coming year. This is the first of several
hearings to examine over $40 billion in annual federal research
and development spending within the Science Committee's
jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, this Administration's science budget
focuses, in my view, too much money, time, and effort on
alarmist predictions of climate change. For example, the
Administration tried to link hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and
droughts to climate change. Yet even the Administration's own
scientists contradicted the President.
The Administration also has not been as open and honest
with the American people as it should. When the Committee asked
the EPA for the scientific data being used to justify some of
the costliest regulations in history, their response was that
they didn't have it even though they were using it. When we
asked the National Science Foundation last year for their
justification in funding numerous research grants, the NSF
refused to provide a response.
All government employees and their agency heads need to
remember they are accountable to the American taxpayer who pays
their salary and funds their projects. It is not the
government's money; it is the people's money.
Further, an estimated $300 million was spent in building
the website Healthcare.gov prior to its public rollout last
October. Secretary Sebelius rightly called this ``a debacle.''
In its haste to launch the Healthcare.gov website, it appears
the Obama Administration cut corners that left the site open to
hackers and other online criminals. According to experts who
testified before the Science Committee, millions of Americans
are vulnerable to identity theft from this website.
For this reason, the Science Committee has twice asked the
White House's Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park, to testify
about his role in the development of the Healthcare.gov
website. Rather than allow him to testify before Congress, the
White House instead chose to make Mr. Park available for
interviews with Time magazine. So much for accountability and
transparency.
The Administration's willful disregard for public
accountability distracts from the important issues of how
America can stay ahead of China, Russia, and other countries in
the highly competitive race for technological leadership.
Perhaps the greatest example of the White House's lack of
leadership is with America's space program. The White House's
approach has been to raid NASA's budget to fund the
Administration's environmental agenda. In the last seven years,
NASA's Earth Science Division has grown by over 63 percent.
Meanwhile, the White House budget proposal would cut NASA by
almost $200 million in Fiscal Year 2015 compared to what
Congress provided the agency this year.
And the White House's proposed asteroid retrieval mission
is a mission without a budget, without a destination, and
without a launch date. Rather than diminish NASA's space
exploration mission, President Obama should set forth a
certain, near-term, realizable goal for NASA's space
exploration.
Many experts believe that a Mars Flyby mission launched in
2021 is a potentially worthy near-term goal. A human Mars
mission would electrify the American public, excite American
scientists, and inspire American students.
Our leadership has slipped in areas such as space
exploration where we currently rely on Russia to launch our
astronauts into space; supercomputing where China currently has
the lead; and even severe weather forecasting where European
weather models routinely predict America's weather better than
we can. We need to make up for lost ground.
These budget hearings are about something far more
important than simply numbers on a ledger. They are about
priorities. And the Administration should reevaluate its
priorities if we want to continue to be a world leader in
science, space, and technology.
That concludes my opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Lamar S. Smith
The topic of today's hearing is the President's budget request for
the coming year. This is the first of several hearings to examine over
$40 billion in annual federal research and development (R&D) spending
within the Science Committee's jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, this Administration's science budget focuses, in my
view, far too much money, time, and effort on alarmist predictions of
climate change. For example, the Administration tried to link
hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts to climate change. Yet even
the Administration's own scientists contradicted the president.
The Administration also has not been as open and honest with the
American people as it should. When the Committee asked the EPA for the
scientific data being used to justify some of the costliest regulations
in history, their response was that they didn't have it even though
they were using it.
When we asked the National Science Foundation (NSF) last year for
their justification in funding numerous research grants, the NSF
refused to provide a response.
All government employees and their agency heads need to remember
they are accountable to the American taxpayer who pays their salary and
funds their projects. It is not the government's money; it's the
people's money.
Further, an estimated $300 million was spent in building the
website Healthcare.gov prior to its public rollout last October.
Secretary Sebelius rightly called this ``a debacle.'' In its haste to
launch the Healthcare.gov website, it appears the Obama Administration
cut corners that left the site open to hackers and other online
criminals. According to experts who testified before the Science
Committee, millions of Americans are vulnerable to identity theft from
this website.
For this reason, the Science Committee has twice asked the White
House's Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park, to testify about his role
in the development of the Healthcare.gov website. Rather than allow him
to testify before Congress, the White House instead chose to make Mr.
Park available for interviews with Time magazine. So much for
accountability and transparency.
The Administration's willful disregard for public accountability
distracts from the important issues of how America can stay ahead of
China, Russia, and other countries in the highly-competitive race for
technological leadership.
Perhaps the greatest example of the White House's lack of
leadership is with America's space program. The White House's approach
has been to raid NASA's budget to fund the Administration's
environmental agenda. In the last seven years, NASA's Earth Science
Division has grown by over 63 percent. Meanwhile, the White House's
budget proposal would cut NASA by almost $200 million in Fiscal Year
2015 compared to what Congress provided the agency this year.
And The White House's proposed asteroid retrieval mission is a
mission without a budget, without a destination, and without a launch
date. Rather than diminish NASA's space exploration mission, President
Obama should set forth a certain, near-term, realizable goal for NASA's
space exploration.
Many experts believe that a Mars Flyby mission launched in 2021 is
a potentially worthy near-term goal. A human Mars mission would
electrify the American public, excite American scientists, and inspire
American students.
Our leadership has slipped in areas such as: space exploration
where we currently rely on Russia to launch our astronauts into space;
supercomputing where China currently has the lead; and even severe
weather forecasting where European weather models routinely predict
America's weather better than we can. We need to make up for lost
ground.
These budget hearings are about something far more important than
simply numbers on a ledger. They're about priorities. And the
Administration should reevaluate its priorities if we want to continue
to be a world leader in science, space, and technology.
Chairman Smith. And the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman
from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for hers.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this
hearing and welcome, Dr. Holdren. It is always good to have you
before our Committee.
The Fiscal Year 2015 budget request makes it clear that the
President remains committed to prioritizing investments in
science and innovation. While limited by last year's two-year
budget agreement, the President is proposing to identify new
sources for research and development funding, including through
much-needed tax reform. This new funding will also make a big
difference for some of our top economic development and
national security priorities. I welcome discussion on the
Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative and I hope that my
colleagues across the aisle will do the same before they
outright dismiss it. For if we continue to flat-fund or cut our
investments in science and innovation under the guise of fiscal
constraint, our nation will suffer the consequences for many
decades to come.
Under flat and often uncertain budgets, we are not just
ceding leadership in some areas of science and engineering; we
are losing the next generation of discoverers and innovators.
Early career scientists and engineers, even those in the top of
their class, have increasingly come to believe that the Nation
is unwilling to invest in them and their talents. If nothing
changes, we will continue to experience a brain drain that will
have profound implications for our country's ability to
innovate and compete in the global economy.
I will make just a few specific comments about the Fiscal
Year 2015 budget proposal under discussion today. I am pleased
with the Administration's continued commitment to advanced
manufacturing R&D, and workforce development. I hope we can
find a path forward for Congress to enact the bipartisan bill
that would codify the national network for manufacturing
innovation.
I also support the increased funding for climate change
research and mitigation. Climate change is real and its
consequences are real, even if some uncertainties remain. It
might be easy for the most privileged among us to sit back and
say we will be fine regardless of the severity of the impacts,
but the vulnerable among us are already hurting and scientists
and economists predict it will get much worse. I am saddened
that we keep debating this at all. I still hope we act before
it is too late to direct our Nation's great brainpower to
developing solutions to reduce the warming and mitigate the
impacts in our most vulnerable communities.
It is also why--this is also why I am pleased to see the
Administration's strong budget proposal for the Department of
Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, as
well as ARPA-E, which will go a long way toward building and
capturing the jobs of a growing sustainable energy sector.
At the same time, I have some questions and concerns about
the budget proposal, including with respect to other parts of
the DOE budget. I am also disappointed that once again we have
a NASA budget request that would cut funding for the Nation's
human exploration program even as the Space Launch System and
Orion development projects are building hardware and getting
ready for flight tests.
In addition, the Administration's budget request
inexplicably would cut funds for science, one of the most
exciting and productive of NASA's enterprises.
I also want to learn more about the new scaled-backed
proposal to overhaul federal investments in STEM education. Now
that we have the federal STEM education five-year strategic
plan, I hope we can have a more productive discussion about how
the budget proposal is aligned with the goals of the strategic
plan and how experts in the stakeholder community are being
engaged in major discussions.
The truth is we all have things to be concerned about in
this budget, but the root of the problem is that there isn't
enough money to go around to adequately fund all of our
priorities. The President and the agencies had to make some
very tough choices. Some of our own choices may be different
and Congress will have this opportunity to express those
choices in our authorization and appropriations bills.
But today, I look forward to hearing more from Dr. Holdren
about the President's choices. As we move forward to
reauthorize several of the agencies and programs within the
Committee's jurisdiction, we need to give due consideration to
the President's own proposals. Most importantly, I hope that
any legislation that we bring to the Floor of the House reflect
both the needs to invest in our future and our faith and
integrity and potential of our nation's STEM talent.
Thank you, Dr. Holdren, for being here today and thank you
for your continued contributions to ensuring continued U.S.
leadership in science and innovation.
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 welcome,
Dr. Holdren. It's always good to have you appear before the Committee.
The fiscal year 2015 budget request makes it clear that the
President remains committed to prioritizing investments in science and
innovation. While limited by last year's two year budget agreement, the
President is proposing to identify new sources for research and
development funding, including through much needed tax reform. This new
funding will also make a big difference for some of our top economic
development and national security priorities. I welcome discussion on
the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative, and I hope that my
colleagues across the aisle will do the same before they outright
dismiss it. For if we continue to flat fund or cut our investments in
science and innovation under the guise of fiscal restraint, our nation
will suffer the consequences for many decades to come.
Under flat and often uncertain budgets, we are not just ceding
leadership in some areas of science and engineering, we are losing the
next generation of discoverers and innovators. Early career scientists
and engineers, even those in the top of their class, have increasingly
come to believe that the nation is unwilling to invest in them and
their talents. If nothing changes, we will continue to experience a
brain drain that will have profound implications for our country's
ability to innovate and compete in a global economy.
I'll make just a few specific comments about the fiscal year 2015
budget proposal under discussion today. I am pleased with the
Administration's continued commitment to advanced manufacturing R&D and
workforce development. I hope we can find a path forward in Congress to
enact the bipartisan bill that would codify the National Network for
Manufacturing Innovation.
I also support the increased funding for climate change research
and mitigation. Climate change is real and its consequences are real,
even if some uncertainties remain. It might be easy for the most
privileged among us to sit back and say we'll be fine regardless of the
severity of the impacts. But the vulnerable among us are already
hurting and scientists and economists predict it will get much worse. I
am saddened that we keep debating this at all.
I still hope we act before it is too late to direct our nation's
great brainpower to developing solutions to reduce the warming and
mitigate the impacts in our most vulnerable communities. This is also
why I am pleased to see the Administration's strong budget proposal for
the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy, as well as ARPAE, which will go a long way toward building and
capturing the jobs of a growing sustainable energy sector.
At the same time, I have some questions and concerns about the
budget proposal, including with respect to other parts of the DOE
budget. I am also disappointed that once again we have a NASA budget
request that would cut funding for the nation's human exploration
program, even as the Space Launch System and Orion development projects
are building hardware and getting ready for flight tests. In addition,
the Administration's budget request inexplicably would cut funding for
science, one of the most exciting and productive of NASA's enterprises.
I also want to learn more about the new, scaled-back proposal to
overhaul federal investments in STEM education. Now that we have the
Federal STEM Education five year strategic plan, I hope we can have a
more productive discussion about how the budget proposal is aligned
with the goals of the strategic plan, and how experts in the
stakeholder community are being engaged in major decisions.
The truth is we all have things to be concerned about in this
budget, but the root of the problem is that there isn't enough money to
go around to adequately fund all of our priorities. The President and
the agencies had to make some very tough choices. Some of our own
choices may be different, and Congress will have its opportunity to
express those choices in our authorization and appropriations bills,
but today I look forward to hearing more from Dr. Holdren about the
President's choices.
As we move forward to reauthorize several of the agencies and
programs within this Committee's jurisdiction, we need to give due
consideration to the President's own proposals. Most importantly, I
hope that any legislation that we bring to the Floor of the House
reflects both the need to invest in our future and our faith in the
integrity and potential of our nation's STEM talent.
Thank you, Dr. Holdren for being here today, and thank you for your
continued contributions to ensuring continued U.S. leadership in
science and innovation.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
Let me welcome Dr. Holdren back to the Committee and we
appreciate his being here today. He is our only witness.
Dr. Holdren serves as the Director of the Office of Science
and Technology Policy at the White House where he is both the
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Co-
Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology.
Prior to his current appointment by President Obama, Dr.
Holdren was a professor in both the Kennedy School of
Government and the Department of Earth Science at Harvard.
Previously he was a member of the faculty at the University of
California Berkeley where he founded and led a graduate degree
program in Energy and Resources. Dr. Holdren graduated from MIT
and Stanford with degrees in aerospace engineering and
theoretical plasma physics.
Dr. Holdren, welcome, and we look forward to your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN HOLDREN, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY,
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Dr. Holdren. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Smith,
Ranking Member Johnson, Members of the Committee. I am pleased
to be here to discuss the civilian science and technology
components of the President's Fiscal Year 2015 budget.
I want to start by observing that science and technology as
a whole do better in this budget than might be expected given
the stringent caps that apply. Under those caps, we are not
able to propose as much for R&D and for STEM education as the
challenges and opportunities warrant, but the priority that the
President places on these domains is evident in the fact that
the 1.2 percent increase for R&D in his budget over Fiscal Year
2014 enacted is six times bigger in percentage terms than the
0.2 percent increase in discretionary spending overall set by
Congress in the bipartisan budget act last December. And STEM
education in the President's budget is up 3.7 percent over
Fiscal Year 2014 enacted.
While the base budget in the President's submission for
Fiscal Year 2015 comports with the caps in the bipartisan
budget act, he has also put forward in his submission a vision
for stronger investments in America's future in the form of a
supplementary $56 billion Opportunity, Growth, and Security
Initiative. While requiring additional Congressional action, it
would be fully paid for by spending reforms and closing tax
loopholes and would come close to restoring Fiscal Year 2015
discretionary spending to the level originally planned in the
Budget Control Act of 2011. The $56 billion would be divided
equally between the defense and nondefense categories and $5.3
billion of it would support research and development. This
would take the $135.4 billion for R&D in the regular budget up
to $140.7 billion, which would be a 5.2 percent increase over
Fiscal Year 2014 enacted. And that supplement would include
nearly $900 million for NASA.
In my written testimony I describe some of the other
supplementary R&D investments proposed in the initiative. I
just want to mention here a few other points in my written
testimony that I think deserve particular emphasis.
First of all, within the spending caps, the budget provides
for a 1.2 percent increase in the combined budgets of the
National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office
of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and
Technology labs to $13 billion. These three agencies were last
authorized in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010.
I look forward to working with the Congress on reauthorizing
the COMPETES legislation and its support for these three
crucially important science agencies.
The President's budget for NASA within the spending caps is
$17.5 billion. Consistent with the provisions of the NASA
Authorization Act agreement between the Congress and the
Administration, the budget funds continued development of the
Space Launch System and the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle to
enable human exploration missions to new destinations. It funds
the continued operation and enhanced use of the International
Space Station, which the Administration recently announced its
commitment to extend through at least 2024.
It funds the further development of private sector systems
to carry cargo and crew into low-Earth orbit thus
reestablishing a cost-effective U.S. capability for these
missions and shortening the duration of our sole reliance on
Russian launch vehicles for access to the Station.
It funds a balanced portfolio of space and Earth science,
including a continued commitment to new satellites and programs
for Earth observation. It funds a dynamic space technology
development program and it funds a strong aeronautics research
effort. I look forward to continuing to work with Congress and
with this Committee on reauthorizing NASA.
The budget requests $5.6 million for OSTP, my office, the
same as Fiscal Year 2014 enacted, to support OSTP's diverse
missions in overseeing and coordinating science and technology
efforts across the Executive Branch, including efforts that
Congress asked us to undertake in the two COMPETES Acts, the
NASA Authorization Act, and other legislation.
As a final point, I want to emphasize the Administration's
ongoing commitment within the President's science and
technology budget not just to R&D but also to STEM education to
better prepare the next generation of discoverers, inventors,
high-skilled workers, and science-savvy citizens. As I noted
earlier, the budget's $2.9 billion for STEM education programs
is a 3.7 percent increase over Fiscal Year 2014 enacted.
My written testimony and the STEM Education Report I
delivered to Congress this week update the Committee on how the
2015 budget proposal for STEM education differs from last
year's. To summarize, the 2015 budget makes important changes
that reflect input from the STEM education community and from
the Committee. This budget continues to reduce fragmentation of
STEM education programs across government but it does not
transfer functions and the associated funding between agencies
and it focuses strongly on the five key areas identified by the
federal STEM education five-year strategic plan released last
May.
In closing, I look forward to continuing to work with the
Committee to strengthen the Nation's science and technology
portfolio and to achieve the economic and other societal
benefits it underpins. I will be happy to try to answer any
questions the Members may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Holdren follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Holdren.
I will recognize myself for five minutes for questions.
My first one goes to the budget, and in your testimony you
cite three agencies: the National Science Foundation, the
Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the NIST labs as
having been identified as especially important to the nation's
continued scientific and economic leadership, and I agree with
you. But the last budget request by President Bush in 2008 was
higher in real spending terms for those three agencies than
President Obama's current budget.
[Chart:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. And on the screen to our left and right you
will see a chart that shows that in equivalent 2015 dollars,
President Bush's Fiscal Year 2009 COMPETES request was about
$300 million more than that of President Obama. This will
surprise a lot of people who may have read otherwise. My
question is fairly simple. Why is the Administration's budget
request, at least in my view, going in the wrong direction?
Dr. Holdren. Well, first of all, I will agree with Ranking
Member Johnson in her opening statement that there simply is
not enough money to fund all of the Administration's
priorities. We are suffering through an era of very difficult
choices. The essence of the matter I think is the President's
proposal for the supplementary initiative--the Opportunity,
Growth, and Security Initiative--which would boost the funding
of NIH by almost $1 billion, boost the funding of NASA by
nearly $900 million, boost the funding of NSF by half-a-billion
dollars, and so on.
So what we are hoping is that the vision of the President
for science and technology as embodied not just in the base
budget but in the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative
will be welcomed by the Congress and will lead to funding
levels that more adequately address the challenges and the
opportunities.
Chairman Smith. And, Dr. Holdren, as I mentioned in my
opening statement, it really comes down to a matter of
priorities, and in this instance, as I also emphasized, I think
the Administration needs to perhaps reevaluate its priorities
when we had the Bush Administration spending more on those
nondefense research and development than the current
Administration.
Let me go to a question about the National Science
Foundation. When you testified last year, you agreed that there
was room for improvement as to how the National Science
Foundation prioritizes grants.
[Chart:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. On the screen now are six NSF-funded
studies out of many dozens that to me are questionable. You
have studied fishing practices around Lake Victoria in Africa,
$15,000; $340,000 to study the ecological consequences of early
human-set fires in New Zealand; a three-year, $200,000 study of
the Bronze Age on the island of Cyprus; surveying lawsuits in
Peru from 1600 to 1700, $50,000; the Climate Change Musical
that was prepared for Broadway but I am not sure ever was
actually produced, $700,000; and causes of stress in Bolivia,
$20,000. Well, what causes a lot of the stress is studying
stress in Bolivia.
My question is this: Do you think the National Science
Foundation should in fact provide the public--it is their
taxpayers' dollars that are paying for these--with
justification for why the research grants they choose are
worthy of funding?
Dr. Holdren. Let me make a couple of comments to that
question. First of all, I did say improvement was possible at
the NSF with respect to transparency, effectiveness, and so on.
I think improvement is possible in virtually every human
institution, and I think the NSF has improved in the
intervening time. They have issued new guidelines both to their
grantees and to their employees about transparency and
explanations of the importance and relevance of the research
that they fund. These are posted on the NSF website. I am not
in a position to address on the fly individual grants.
Chairman Smith. I understand that.
Dr. Holdren. I suggested in the last time I testified here
I am not sure any of us in this room are as good a judge of the
relevance of research projects and social----
Chairman Smith. Dr. Holdren, excuse me for interrupting you
but I want to finish up one more question in a second. But I
think my question really went to whether you feel that the
National Science Foundation should justify these grants one way
or the other? And I know they--as you say, they have been
making some changes. So far, all we have heard is that words;
we haven't actually seen these changes implemented yet and I
know you are going to help us with that. But don't you feel
that NSF should justify these grants to the American taxpayer?
Dr. Holdren. I believe they do justify the grants to the
American taxpayers in what they post on their site about the
evaluations, but I would also note that the Organic Act, the
National Science Foundation Act of 1950, says that what the
Foundation is supposed to do starts with promoting the progress
of science and then it goes on to say ``to advance the national
health, prosperity, and welfare to secure the national
defense----
Chairman Smith. Right.
Dr. Holdren. --and other purposes.'' Funding basic research
is in the NSF's mission. It is our most important funder of
basic research. We should let it continue to do that.
Chairman Smith. We are going to have to agree to disagree
perhaps. I do not think that they have justified these grants,
at least in what they have publicly posted. And as I mentioned
to you earlier, I wrote a letter almost a year ago to the head
of the National Science Foundation and I am still waiting for
justification on a number of grants, and I think you are going
to try to help me get those justifications.
Dr. Holdren. I will try to help.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Let me yield myself an additional
minute, and I don't do that very often but I would like to
squeeze in one more question and this goes to NASA.
In December 2012 the National Academy of Sciences released
a report about NASA's strategic direction. That report stated
that ``the committee has seen little evidence that a current
stated goal for NASA's human spaceflight program--namely, to
visit an asteroid by 2025--has been widely accepted as a
compelling destination by NASA's own workforce, by the nation
as a whole, or by the international community.''
NASA's own advisory group found the asteroid retrieval
mission ``to be very interesting and entertaining,'' but ``it
was not considered to be a serious proposal.'' Combine the
asteroid retrieval mission with the Obama Administration's
track record of canceling space exploration programs, first the
Constellation program, then a joint robotic mission to Mars,
and now SOFIA, an infrared telescope that flies aboard a Boeing
747, and then add in the Administration's proposed budget which
cuts NASA by $186 million, and you have to wonder if the
Administration is really committed to space exploration.
[Chart:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
My question is this: As we can see from this chart, the
Administration's budget request is down nine percent in real
dollars compared to the last year of the Bush Administration.
Is there a good explanation for this?
Dr. Holdren. First of all, Mr. Chairman, the last Bush
Administration was not laboring under the budget caps that we
are laboring under now.
Chairman Smith. As I said a while ago, it is a matter of
priorities.
Dr. Holdren. It is a matter of priorities. There is not
enough to go around, and if we get the Opportunity, Growth, and
Security Initiative, it will enable boosting NASA very
substantially.
Chairman Smith. But meanwhile, the Administration doesn't
give as great a priority to NASA as it does to a lot of other
programs. Obviously, that is the result.
Dr. Holdren. Let me address your comment about the asteroid
mission. The quote you mentioned was two years old. The
asteroid mission has been reformulated and better explained and
now has a strong buy-in, not only from NASA staff----
Chairman Smith. They still don't have a budget and they
still don't have an asteroid and they still don't have a launch
date. That doesn't sound to me like a very serious program.
Dr. Holdren. There is a budget. There is a target in time
for achievement of the mission, and it uses--one of the great
attractions of the asteroid mission is it uses capabilities we
are already paying for. It will use the SLS, it will use the
Orion, it will use an electric propulsion----
Chairman Smith. And other missions would use those same--
use the same equipment I think much sooner. And you had the
Administration actually cutting SLS and Orion. Again----
Dr. Holdren. Not a bit.
Chairman Smith. --I don't agree with their priorities.
Dr. Holdren. They are going to stay on schedule. We will
have SLS. We will have Orion----
Chairman Smith. Right.
Dr. Holdren. --and we will use them for the next space
exploration.
Chairman Smith. And again, it appears by the cuts that the
Administration's priorities do not coincide with this
Committee's priorities, but I thank you for your answers.
The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for
her questions.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much.
Dr. Holdren, a number of my colleagues continue to question
the value of the federal investments in social, behavioral, and
economic sciences. In the most recent effort among many, the
FIRST Act, as introduced, proposed to cut NSF's modest
investment in social sciences by 40 percent. And my colleagues
seem unable to connect the dots between human sciences and our
national interest. Can you please remind us once again both how
small our social science budget is relative to our overall R&D
budget, and more importantly, what we lose in terms of benefits
to society when we arbitrarily cut and restrict support for
competitively awarded social science research?
Dr. Holdren. Okay. Let me start with the Social,
Behavioral, and Economic Sciences line within NSF. It, in the
Fiscal Year 2015 request, is $272 million out of a total
research sum of $5.8 billion, so it is a very, very modest
proportion of the NSF budget.
The second thing I would say is there has been abundant
documentation of the benefits to society of NSF's investments
in this domain. Those fall in the categories of making our
democracy work better, including work on the conduct of
elections, management of common property resources without
regulation, decision-making under uncertainty, understanding
negotiation and compromise, and more. Tracking and improving
economic and social well-being, economic and social databases
and statistics, understanding poverty, understanding what works
in teaching, improving public health and safety, risk
communication, what causes people to get out of the way of
hurricanes and tornadoes, what works, optimizing disaster
response, controlling the spread of infectious diseases through
social behavior, reducing human trafficking, understanding the
patterns of crime enabling us to map crime, allocate law
enforcement resources better, national defense and
international relations, understanding the conduct of other
nations, understanding the effectiveness of sanctions,
nonverbal communication which helps our troops function in
environments where other languages are spoken,
interdisciplinary work involving social and economic sciences
in cybersecurity, in geographic information systems, in
neuroscience, psychology, language learning, decision
processes.
I think we are getting a lot of bang for the buck out of
social, behavioral, and economic sciences in NSF.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much.
In the FIRST Act, some of my colleagues are proposing to
move the interagency STEM education coordinating committee,
known as CoSTEM, from the National Science and Technology
Council to NSF. CoSTEM was created at the NSTC in response to a
requirement that we put in the 2010 COMPETES Act. I have a few
concerns about this, including taking resources out of other
important NSF programs and also the decreased stature of the
Committee if we move it out of the White House. What are your
thoughts on moving CoSTEM's responsibilities to NSF?
Dr. Holdren. Well, thank you for that question. I think the
CoSTEM, the Committee on STEM education, should stay where it
is in the National Science and Technology Council. The reason
for that is the NSTC is the body that was set up to coordinate
and oversee STEM-related activities that cross agency and
department boundaries.
And of course, as further discussion will doubtless
illuminate and as this Committee knows, the STEM education
function is spread across many different departments and
agencies in this government, harnessing the special
capabilities of NASA, of NIH, the Department of Education, the
NSF, the Smithsonian Institution. And it is obviously in the
interest of coordination and efficiency that the oversight of
that operation be in a place that includes all of the
stakeholders, all of the participants as the NSTC CoSTEM does.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. Well, I have 15 more
seconds.
Many of us have concern about some of the numbers in the
President's R&D budget request. For example, the request for
NSF is below inflation, but the President is also proposing R&D
funding as part of the Opportunity, Growth, and Security
Initiative. How does this initiative fit into the President's
commitment to continue our investments in science and
innovation?
Dr. Holdren. Well, as I said in my testimony, we think the
base budget doesn't have enough room for all of the priorities
of the President and what we think should be the priorities of
the Nation, and that is why that supplemental Opportunity,
Growth, and Security Initiative was devised, to provide an
opportunity for the President to say what he thinks we really
need and to provide the Congress an opportunity to provide it.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
recognized for his questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
And Dr. Holdren, thank you very much for being with us
today.
We have heard the word prioritize a lot here, and in order
to prioritize of course we have to make sure that judgments are
being made and priorities are being made based on accurate
information and especially when we are talking about major
energy and environmental decisions that would have amazing
costs to society, as well as jobs and reflect the standard of
living of our people.
The Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA Janet McCabe was
here just a short time ago and I had to ask her a question five
times before I got an answer, and then she really didn't answer
it at that point. So I would kind of like to ask you if I could
get an answer to this question from the Administration.
We keep seeing this being presented to us as a fact saying
that global warming is being caused by human activity and that
97 percent of all the scientists believe that global warming is
caused by--that there is global warming and it is caused by
human activity. When I am looking at where they get the
information and as you look very closely at this, you find out
that invitation was sent out to 10,000 Earth scientists. Less
than 1/3 responded, and of those, the pool is narrowed down and
this turns out to be 97 percent of 77 scientists who were
selected. And we have even heard this figure repeated here in
this chamber and in our debates.
Now, let me just ask you now. Do you believe that 97
percent of the scientists believe that global warming is a
product of human behavior?
Dr. Holdren. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in any
particular number to two significant figures. I believe that
the vast majority of scientists who are actively working in the
domain of climate science take it as the established consensus
view----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Dr. Holdren. --that global warming is real, it is
happening, it is caused in substantial part by human activity--
--
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you agree---
Dr. Holdren. --and it is already doing harm.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. But you agree that this is a
bogus figure?
Dr. Holdren. No, I wouldn't say it is a bogus figure. I
would just say that there are considerable uncertainties around
an exact figure. But the fact is, for example, that the
National Academies----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Holdren, I am asking----
Dr. Holdren. If I may finish----
Mr. Rohrabacher. --you a direct question. Why can't anybody
admit that you have got a group of people reading out a bogus
theory here?
Dr. Holdren. This was published in a peer-reviewed article.
It was based on generally accepted social science practices for
doing polling where you never get a complete response. I am not
going to defend 97 percent as accurate to the two significant
figures that provided----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. That is good.
Dr. Holdren. --but I would remind you----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So that----
Dr. Holdren. --that every National Academy of Sciences in
the world, including all of the National Academies of the
G8+5----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Dr. Holdren. --or what is now the G7+5----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Dr. Holdren. --have agreed and issued a joint statement
that climate change is real, largely caused by humans,
dangerous, and we need to take action----
Mr. Rohrabacher. And does the Russian Academy of Sciences
agree with that?
Dr. Holdren. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Then why did the head of the Russian
Academy of Sciences tell me just the opposite?
Dr. Holdren. I have no idea----
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Dr. Holdren. --about a conversation----
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Dr. Holdren. --that you might have had with the president
of the Academy. They signed the statement.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Dr. Holdren. I can provide it to you for the record.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Well, let me just note----
Dr. Holdren. I would be happy to do so.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, let me note for the record that I
had a meeting with a large number of the scientists in Russia
and the head of the Academy of Sciences said just the opposite
to me.
Let me ask this--about this. Do you believe that tornadoes
and hurricanes today are more ferocious and more frequent than
they were in the past?
Dr. Holdren. There is no evidence relating to tornadoes,
none at all, and I don't know of any spokesman for the
Administration who has said otherwise.
With respect to hurricanes, there is some evidence of an
increase in the North Atlantic, although not in other parts of
the world.
With respect to droughts and floods, which were mentioned
in an earlier statement, there is quite strong evidence that in
some regions they are being--some regions----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Dr. Holdren. --they are being enhanced if you will----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Dr. Holdren. --by climate change, not caused by climate
change but influenced by climate change.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Well, I note all of the--I
don't want to sound pejorative but there are weasel herds what
I used to call it when I was a journalist that in some areas--
globally, it is--there is not more droughts. Globally, there
are not more hurricanes and they are not more ferocious, is
that correct?
Dr. Holdren. If you want to take a global average, the fact
is a warmer world is getting wetter. There is more evaporation
so there is more precipitation, so on a global average, there
are unlikely to be more droughts. The question is whether
drought-prone regions are suffering increased intensity and
duration of droughts, and the answer there is yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So we actually have more water and more
drought. Okay. Thank you very much.
Dr. Holdren. Absolutely.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, is recognized
for her questions.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you very much.
And thank you very much, Dr. Holdren, for being here today
and also for your tremendous service to our nation and your
leadership in science generally. I am so pleased by the efforts
that you have made.
And I want to discuss in particular just a couple of things
where I hope that we can have some--a different outcome than in
the proposed budget. First, the reduction--SOFIA is something
that has produced terrific results, and I realize that the--it
is kind of ironic to hear people who voted for the sequester
question the amount of budget available for science, but we do
have a tight budget.
But to me it is a problem to reduce when you have spent so
much to get the results. And so I won't get into it. I will
just say I do not believe that the Congress is going to accept
the elimination of SOFIA. There will be a bipartisan effort to
change that and I hope to be and plan to be part of that
bipartisan effort.
I wanted to raise the issue of the budget for fusion. As
you know, last year, the National Academies released a report
which found that several inertial fusion concepts, including
the approaches taken by the National Ignition Facility and the
Z Pulsed Power Facility have enough technical promise to
justify dedicated federal support for inertial fusion R&D
relevant to energy, not just the weapons reliability. However,
there is no program currently in the federal government which
directly officially supports inertial fusion research and
technology development activities as it relates to energy
production.
Now, we have discussed this--I know Congressman Swalwell
will probably have his own set of questions--with the
Department of Energy and the new Secretary, but it--I would
like to ask you to--whether you and the Secretary of Energy
have had an opportunity to discuss the National Academy report
and whether a collaboration might be in order to actually bring
that National Academy suggestion into reality?
Dr. Holdren. Well, let me start by saying, Congresswoman
Lofgren, that the 2015 budget does provide $329 million for the
continued operation of the National Ignition Facility and the
Inertial Confinement Fusion program at Livermore, and I
believe, and I think the Secretary of Energy would probably say
the same, that the energy goal at NIF is served by the
continuing effort to achieve ignition. The principal challenge
with NIF is to get to ignition.
Ms. Lofgren. Right.
Dr. Holdren. There have been important steps forward but we
are not there yet, and until NIF can get to ignition, there
won't be a basis for figuring out how to turn it into an energy
source. And we got $329 million that is going to that facility
in continued pursuit of that goal.
Ms. Lofgren. If I may, Dr. Holdren, and I do appreciate
that you have been out there and certainly have boosted morale
considerably by your visit to Sandia and Livermore. We have
lost hundreds of employees at Lawrence Livermore lab and the 80
scientists, and I was actually out at the lab a few weeks ago
and the attrition rate is about 1-1/2 scientists a week.
And here is my concern, that unless we can give some
assurance as to stability, I mean Livermore is not in my
district but it is an hour's drive from Silicon Valley and we
have competition for these scientists and they are looking--
they are leaving. And so I want to make sure that we have the
capacity to actually pursue. We have had some tremendous
successes in the last few months. Obviously, we don't know, but
recently one of the top scientists there said we don't have
ignition yet but we have a lit match. And so we want to make
sure that we get this done and I will just leave it at that.
I wanted to touch on the open access issue. You have just
given us the update, which I appreciate so very much. As you
know, we had a little disagreement here in the Committee, the
Subcommittee recently, and I just wanted to thank you for your
efforts and to make sure that you are aware we are going to do
our best that that does not go off the rails. I think it is
essential that when the taxpayers pay for research, that
scientists get access to that research, and I wanted to commend
your efforts in that regard.
And with that, I would yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer, is recognized.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Holdren, thank you for being here this morning. Two
years ago in April of 2012, the President signed an Executive
Order announcing the formation of an interagency working group
led by the White House to coordinate and plan agency activities
for hydraulic fracturing research. I think that was composed of
the Department of Energy, EPA, the U.S. Geological Survey. It
committed to developing this interagency plan. And I think at
that time the Administration told Congress that they would see
the research plan January of last year, and so that would have
been January of 2013. That date came and went and January of
2014 has come and gone. And it has been two years and we
haven't seen anything from the report. Dr. Holdren, where is
the plan?
Dr. Holdren. Congressman, I will have to get back to you on
exactly where the plan is. We certainly have been looking at
the issue of fracking and with an eye to making sure that the
very important resource represented by the gas and oil that can
be produced in this way continues to be available to the
American people by virtue of ensuring that the practices
continue to warrant the confidence of the public that this is
being done in a way that is not imperiling groundwater, that is
not aggravating air pollution, and so on.
As to the exact fate of this report, I would propose to get
back to you for the record.
Mr. Neugebauer. Well, I think I am troubled by a couple of
things. One is that there was really not a lot of evidence to
really justify, you know, moving down this road. You know, I am
from Texas and we have been doing hydraulic fracturing in Texas
for a very, very long time. And it appears that this
Administration is on some kind of a witch-hunt trying to find
some example somewhere, but unfortunately--or fortunately for
the industry is that, you know, there has never been any
evidence. But then we are going to go spend a bunch of money
and promise, you know, that we are going to do this study, two
years come and go, there is no study, yet the Administration
still continues to take, in my opinion, a very negative,
slanted view towards that technology.
And so I have a couple questions that--if--while you are
going to do a little research on there, I would like to know
when we are going to see the report and----
Dr. Holdren. I will be happy to let you know as soon as I
find out when the report will be available, but I want to
emphasize this is not a witch-hunt. It is not spending much
money. But the point is there is widespread concern in the
American public at least in some parts of the country that we
have to make absolutely sure that this is done safely. I don't
want and the President doesn't want to lose access to this
natural gas and this oil because we have messed it up, and our
intention is to maintain access to this economically--and in
terms of security also very important--set of resources by
making sure that the country does it right.
Mr. Neugebauer. And while you are doing your research, it
would be interesting to see, you know, how much money has been
spent by the various agencies on this and how much time has
been devoted to it. And I guess the other question is when the
report is completed, you know, how will it be distributed?
Dr. Holdren. Well, of course all of these reports that we
produce end up being posted on the website of the relevant
agency. Many of them end up being posted on the White House
website. I will be happy to make sure that you personally get a
copy when the report is ready, and I will again, as I have said
for the record, provide you with an answer on the pace of
development of this report, how much money has been spent, and
so on.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Neugebauer.
The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, Dr. Holdren, thank you for your leadership at
OSTP and for the Administration's commitment to advanced
manufacturing. It is big area of focus for me and something
that I believe is a big need for the country and looking to
what our future is going to be in terms of economic growth and
job creation.
Institutes like the recently announced Digital
Manufacturing Design Innovation Institute in Chicago which
utilizes high-performance computing and digital tools to help
industries make products better, faster, and more profitably
are vital to reinvigorating our manufacturing base. And I think
we should be doing more of those, as the Administration has
been proposing.
I also would like to thank you for your strong support for
social science at NSF in the President's budget request. I know
that Ranking Member Ms. Johnson had raised this issue and I
just wanted to say I am glad to see healthy increases in
spending for SBE for next Fiscal Year in the request, as you
had mentioned in--earlier in answering the question.
The first question that I wanted to raise addresses the
future of exascale computing. I greatly appreciate the
Administration's leadership on high-performance computing. In
Illinois we are blessed to have two of the fastest
supercomputers in the world with Mira at Argonne and Blue
Waters at the University of Illinois. These two supercomputers
make the DMDI Institute possible, make the--what is going to be
done there and make Illinois a great place to put that
institute.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world is catching up to us
and we need to continue making strides towards exascale
computing. Could you give your thoughts on the future of the
federal high-performance computing projects and how the budget
helps us push the boundaries towards exascale?
Dr. Holdren. Well, let me start by saying that the Obama
Administration shares your view of the importance of high-
performance computing, which includes but is not limited to
getting to the exascale. It also includes capabilities relating
to handling very large, very high-velocity flows of data for
those high-performance computers to use. It involves advances
in software so that the capabilities of these multiple
processor machines can be effectively utilized.
We are currently engaged in a review of the whole high-
performance computing program, which OSTP is leading, along
with all of the relevant departments and agencies with an aim
toward ensuring that United States' capabilities in this domain
remain the best in the world.
And I would note that although it was pointed out earlier
that the fastest computer in the world is currently a Chinese
computer, its capabilities when one takes into account the
data-handling capabilities and software performance
capabilities, the United States is still in the lead in terms
of real capacity of our high-performance computers.
Mr. Lipinski. Any idea of when that review is going to be--
that you are conducting is going to be completed and----
Dr. Holdren. I think a matter of months, not weeks but--
well, within a few months.
Mr. Lipinski. All right. My next question focuses on STEM
education. I recently learned that a new study will be released
tomorrow on a Chicago-based STEM teacher professional
development program at the Museum of Science and Industry. I am
told the study will confirm the museum's innovative approach
increases teacher knowledge and achieves higher rates of
student growth. One-third of Chicago Public K-8 schools are
involved with this program. I think this is an excellent
example of the value that museums and science centers bring to
the table not just for student learning but for teacher
professional development.
A lot of museums and science centers like MSI are looking
at declining funding from federal programs, particularly with
the proposed elimination of the competitive Education Grant
program at NOAA and the lack of a line item for the program for
science museums and planetariums at NASA. The Administration
reorganized--reorganization proposal is somewhat changed from
last year including 10 million for the Smithsonian rather than
last year's 25 million. Can you give your thoughts on the value
of the informal science education that museums and science
centers provide and tell the Committee how this new proposal
would fund STEM education broadly but also support these
informal types of activities?
Dr. Holdren. Well, to make this relatively brief, the
proposal, as it has emerged in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget,
does take account of the value of informal education, and that
happens not just through what the Smithsonian does but it
happens through what agencies like NASA and NOAA and NIH do in
partnership with museums around the country. There are a lot of
these partnerships; there are a lot of joint efforts which also
involve the Department of Education.
I happened to speak with NASA Administrator Bolden
yesterday about NASA's STEM education programs and what they
plan to do under the Fiscal Year 2015 budget, as well as what
they are doing in Fiscal Year 2014, and he stressed, as I
expect he will in his testimony tomorrow before the Space
Subcommittee of this Committee, that NASA is working in close
collaboration with a number of departments, the Department of
Education and with a number of entities around the country, on
this continuing use of NASA's extraordinary resources for
inspiration and instruction to reach the wider community.
Mr. Lipinski. I ran out of time. I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo, is recognized.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Holdren, I heard SOFIA mentioned a little while ago,
and could you kind of explain for this Committee why NASA
invested about $1.1 billion and has been working on this
project for over 23, 24 years; it just became operationally
capable I believe 11 days before the President's proposed
budget decided to eliminate this project and no longer invest
in it leaving basically our German partners who have been a
partner of NASA on this for over 20 something years; can you
tell us a little bit about the project and why it was so
important 20 years ago but it is no longer, I guess, relevant
to our space program today?
Dr. Holdren. I wouldn't say, first of all, that it is not
relevant, but its high operating costs are very difficult to
accommodate within the current budget caps. Just to explain to
the group what it is, SOFIA stands for Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. It has been a joint project
of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. It is an airborne
observatory based on a Boeing 747 SP wide-body aircraft. It has
a 2.5 meter diameter telescope, which accesses the sky through
a special door built into the airplane. That telescope has
particularly attractive capabilities because the Boeing 747 is
flying above most of the water vapor in the atmosphere which
would interfere with the infrared capabilities of the telescope
and it is an attractive project----
Mr. Palazzo. So you----
Dr. Holdren. --but it was ranked behind other projects----
Mr. Palazzo. Who ranked----
Dr. Holdren. --by the Decadal Survey----
Mr. Palazzo. Okay.
Dr. Holdren. --conducted by the National Academy of
Sciences----
Mr. Palazzo. Right.
Dr. Holdren. --which we rely on very heavily in making
these----
Mr. Palazzo. Was an internal review done? I mean you----
Dr. Holdren. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Palazzo. Okay. And an external review? You are taking
the Decadal report and saying it was a lower priority----
Dr. Holdren. We are taking the Decadal report----
Mr. Palazzo. Did you do a senior review, which is of course
the process of where you have the community come in and
actually analyze it for, you know, its benefit to the program?
Dr. Holdren. I would have to defer to Administrator Bolden.
You may want to ask him this tomorrow.
Mr. Palazzo. Can we see a copy of this? I mean you said a
report----
Dr. Holdren. I say I will defer to Administrator Bolden. I
know the issue was reviewed within NASA; I don't know that
there was an external review beyond the Decadal Survey, which,
as I say, ranked it behind other projects that we are
continuing.
Mr. Palazzo. I understand that, Dr. Holdren, but, you know,
we invested $1.1 million in this project, been working on it
for over 23, 24 years. It comes--it came operationally capable
11 days before the President's budget was announced that it was
no longer going to fund this project. So I mean we have to
understand why we had invested American taxpayer dollars in
something that apparently was extremely important to NASA and
just as a--you know, a wave of a wand it is no longer
important. The American taxpayer deserves this. Congress
deserves an answer as well.
And just real quick, I mean we understand that the Chinese
are cultivating, you know, relationships in Europe a lot. You
know, they are very aggressively pursuing our European friends.
And so when this Administration just unilaterally cancels a
project with one of our strong European partners, what kind of
message does this send to the international community?
Dr. Holdren. It is not a message I relish sending, but
again, I would emphasize that there is not enough money to go
around, and if the Congress will pass the President's proposed
Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative, there will be
nearly another $1 billion for NASA, and that SOFIA decision can
be revisited.
Mr. Palazzo. Well, I agree. There is--you know, we continue
to fight over shrinking discretionary pots of money, and until
this Administration and our colleagues get serious about
addressing the number one drivers of our deficits and our debt,
we are going to continue to have these issues where we are not
going to be able to fund not only just NASA priorities, we are
not going to be able to fund our Armed Forces. And, you know,
at a time when the world has become a lot more dangerous, not
safer, we are skirting our responsibilities. And I hope this
President, I hope this--his Administration and future
Congresses will address that serious issue in the future.
I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Palazzo.
The gentlewoman from Maryland, Ms. Edwards, is recognized.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I would just like to say to my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle I would be happy to work with them and I know
the Members on the side would be if we are talking about
increasing budgets that NASA would have, whether it is for
SOFIA or other priorities so that those priorities meet the
needs of the American people, but we haven't seen that kind of
cooperation frankly.
Dr. Holdren, I wanted to give you a chance to respond to
how some Members use the titles--and we have heard it today--of
a few National Science Foundation grants to imply that the
research that was funded by the grant wasn't necessary or it
wasn't of national interest. We have heard that this morning
and I think it is fairly easy to imply that research may not be
in the national interest by only giving the title, but when you
really look into these studies--and I would urge my colleagues
to do that before just reading the title--you realize their
importance.
For example, some Members have questioned grants studying
stress in Bolivia. Well, if someone looked into the research
and not just the title, what they would find is that this study
was investigating a relatively isolated group of people who
were remarkably resilient. Understanding a group like that and
comparing it to the U.S. population, which is less resilient in
some cases, could be helpful to understand the link between
behavioral and social factors and diseases like cardiovascular
disease that we are seeing in the U.S. population.
Other grants that have been mentioned are similar, and once
you look into the research, you actually read, you understand
its importance.
And so I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that and
if you could leave me some time so that I can ask you about
NASA.
Dr. Holdren. I get the impression some of my answers have
been a little long. I apologize.
I would just point out that NSF, with the help and
encouragement from this Committee, has taken steps to make more
transparent and accountable their whole process. They have
established an internal transparency and accountability working
group, they have sent out instructions to all of their staff on
standards for transparency and accountability in describing
grants, and I think that is already showing up in the detail
being provided in the justifications for grants on the NSF
website. And I emphasize that that information is available on
the NSF website, and people who are interested can take a look
and find out whether the justifications for these awards are in
fact persuasive.
My own view is that NSF has done a great job with the peer
review on these grants. Some of the funny-sounding titles, as
you point out, when you look into them do make a lot of sense.
And, you know, I just don't feel that I am well-qualified or
that most people in this room are well-qualified to second-
guess NSF's superb peer-review committees. And the one place
where improvement has been made is in the transparency of those
justifications available to the Congress and available to the
public.
Ms. Edwards. Well, thank you very much. And I mean I will
go to the NSF website and I would encourage my colleagues to do
the same.
Dr. Holdren, I wonder when we talked about SOFIA--and you
can get back to the Committee about this and I know that we
will be exploring it even more--it would be helpful to know the
process that the Administration and that the Agency uses in
justifying a cut to a program or eliminating a program. I think
that is always difficult to absorb because programs aren't just
programs; they are jobs and they are science and they are
investments that have been made. But every once in a while, you
know, you do have to kind of, you know, cut. And we understand
that.
But I would like to know with respect to SOFIA at some
later point as we continue to examine the budget what the
rationale was, what are the steps, the internal processes
within the Administration to make a determination that SOFIA
had to go. And if we were to restore SOFIA, wouldn't that mean
adding another $83 to $85 million into the budget in order to
restore that? And I just hope our colleagues understand that
that is what the choice is.
Dr. Holdren. Thank you. I will provide more information on
SOFIA.
I would note that NASA is looking at the possibility of
other potential partners in the international community to
defray those costs because, again, precisely the problem is
there is just not enough money in the current budget to support
the operating costs of that mission with just the partnership
of the Germans. But if we can expand that partnership, that is
one avenue, and another avenue of course is finding more money,
which the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative would
do.
Ms. Edwards. Great. Thank you very much and I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Edwards.
The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, is recognized.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr.
Holdren, for being here.
From our previous discussions, I hope you know that I do
appreciate you and appreciate the critical role that the Office
of Science and Technology Policy can have in ensuring a
competitive future for our children.
That being said, it is hard for me to understand the
misaligned science priorities this President has put forward in
his budget yet again. Whether it is the federal government
getting involved with things best handled at the state and
local level or this Administration's focus on applied research
and subsidies for favored industries that I see as crowding out
the basic scientific research needed to bring about the next
great technology, invention, or cure. This Administration does
not seem to have its priorities in the proper place.
I am a staunch supporter of STEM education and have been
greatly impressed by the student-led robotics team in my
district. Some of them guided me to complete an Hour of Code,
programming a computer game through computer coding.
The federal government has been funding STEM education for
decades. Every year, a larger emphasis is placed on the subject
and every year we hear how America is falling behind other
countries in math and science.
Dr. Holdren, do you get the sense of that the real problems
with America's science education cannot simply be solved with
more federal spending? Do you think there are larger societal
issues to address that would place more value in spurring our
kids to study math and science?
Dr. Holdren. The short answer is, Congressman, that it is a
larger societal issue. And one of the things we discovered
going to other countries and the President has discovered
talking to other heads of state in places where kids do better
than our kids on the standardized tests is they are feeling
more pressure from parents to do well in education. We need to
get parents more involved in the importance of the education
their kids are getting----
Mr. Hultgren. I agree.
Dr. Holdren. --and it is not just a matter of federal
spending.
Mr. Hultgren. I have seen it really with our robotics
teams, the amazing commitment of the parents and mentors being
engaged in this as well.
There is a raging debate in my home State and across the
country about the adoption of the Common Core State Standards
and whether or not they are wise and sufficient to bring up the
level of competitiveness of our country--that our country is
pursuing. I would like to know what the role OSTP has had in
consultation with stakeholder communities, federal agencies,
and the States in developing curriculum for Common Core?
Dr. Holdren. OSTP, to my knowledge, has not had a role in
that Common Core process so I would need to look into whether
there has been such a role in earlier times.
Mr. Hultgren. If you could check, that would be great. You
know, these standards are purported to be state-led efforts for
Common Core. This is a--was through the action of the States
and not coercion by federal government that they adopted these
standards. But when I talk to my educators and local officials
back in my district, they are only seeing this as a top-down
initiative. Now, it is getting to the point where our schools
are feeling as if they are being coerced into adopting these
standards or their funding will get cut off. That kills the
ability to collaborate and focus our education system on our
kids.
I want to switch subjects a bit. I would like to talk about
federal R&D funding, one of my favorite subjects, especially in
basic research where government does play a key role. The
President has tried to turn science into a political wedge
issue, which it is not and should never be. So I would like to
clear up what his budget actually does to science and his
precedents. Your budget provides $135.4 billion for federal
investment in R&D. Do you know what the previous Administration
proposed, Dr. Holdren?
Dr. Holdren. Well, it would depend on which year they
proposed it.
Mr. Hultgren. Well, what I saw is $147 billion, which was
20 percent more funding than we use in constant Fiscal Year
2015 dollars. This certainly does not seem to match with the
President's rhetoric, but what I find most alarming are the
cuts in basic scientific research. Your proposal has $32.1
billion going to basic research, is that correct?
Dr. Holdren. I think that is right.
Mr. Hultgren. When we are talking about budgeting, we are
really talking about priorities and that is really what all
this is about. There are limited resources. Families in our
district are having to tighten their belts. We have to have
priorities here as well.
Under President Bush, the request was $32.2 billion in
constant dollars but the basic R&D share was much higher. Under
the current proposal, basic research will be at .8 percent of
the federal budget. The previous Administration had it at 1.1
percent, significantly higher. I know that you may try to
justify these overall cuts by singling out the defense R&D cut;
non-R&D was still a high priority during the Bush
Administration. We need to get our priorities right or we will
not continue to have the best research universities and in fact
facilities available to our kids moving forward.
In our constrained budgetary environment, we need to be
sending clear signals to our kids as well as the increasingly
international scientific community that science is important to
us. The President's budget, I believe, fails to set this
message--send this message, and I want to see that changed.
So my time is expired. I yield back, Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren.
The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, is
recognized for his questions.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Holdren--Dr.
Holdren, it is good to see you again. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for spending the time.
I want to start, Doctor, by going back to an issue that I
know you know is important to me and one that we have discussed
at length on a number of occasions and I appreciate your
followup and your advocacy on these.
As you know, STEM education has been an issue that has been
very important to me and important to Massachusetts and my
district. The area of particular interest to me and I wanted to
push on with you a little bit is middle-skilled jobs in
coordination with community colleges and vocational schools.
There is a report from the Brookings Institution--or
Institute that came out about a year ago that highlighted facts
that I am sure you are very familiar with, but that 26 million
of all jobs--or, excuse me, 26 million U.S. jobs, 20 percent of
all jobs require high knowledge in any one STEM field. Half of
all STEM jobs, though, are available to workers without a four-
year college degree and those jobs pay on average $53,000 a
year, about ten percent higher than jobs with similar
educational requirements. STEM jobs that require high level of
knowledge or high--over at least a bachelor's degree are
clustered in certain Metropolitan areas that we all know--
Silicon Valley; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Jose--but other
STEM-based economies like--require--jobs are available for
those that require less than a bachelor's degree. There are
robust economies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Birmingham,
Alabama, and Wichita, Kansas, as well.
And I guess my question for you, Doctor, is through much of
the report that I have reviewed, there seems to be an absence
of focus on community college, vocational schools, vocational
training, technical training, and I want to get your thoughts
as to 1) where the Administration is on this and 2) how we can
be helpful and supportive.
Dr. Holdren. We are aware of the gap in high skills worker
education short of four-year colleges. Just a couple of months
ago we brought a large number of community college Presidents
into the White House to discuss what they are doing and how we
can be more helpful in what they are doing to link up with
manufacturing firms in their regions to create curricula that
match training to the jobs that are actually available in those
regions.
The National Science Foundation's budget in the President's
Fiscal Year 2015 proposal has something over $60 million for
NSF's Advanced Technological Education program, the ATE
program, which centers on education of technicians for high
technology fields. So this is something we are working on.
Mr. Kennedy. And what--and I appreciate that, Doctor.
I visited a number of vocational schools and technical
training schools in my district. These kids are coming out
excited about math, excited about engineering, excited about
science, building things that I certainly never built when I
was in high school. I was--I still know the quadratic equation.
I don't know what good that is doing me. These kids are
building things that actually can work, and when their plumbing
gets backed up, they can fix it and I have got to call one of
them to come fix it.
So I guess my point is these are jobs that aren't going to
get outsourced. These are jobs that, as studies have shown,
are--have a high earning capacity, and there are jobs that are
available today that are going to be available in the future.
And I would just ask that the Administration continue to focus
on this, and if there are ways that we can be helpful on it, we
certainly would like to be as well.
Dr. Holdren. Thank you. And we will keep focused on it.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you. And one other issue that I just--I
know my time is running short, but I wanted to see if you could
comment on there has been a couple of articles of late, even
just in the past couple of weeks, about the prevalence or
increasing prevalence of private philanthropy to take over some
of the--or to fill the need--the gap if you will from some of
these--from the retraction in the government funding for basic
research. Much of this philanthropy is obviously very well-
needed and we should encourage it and I certainly encourage it.
The issue with it is that it is often pinpointed or--to a
specific target by the donor, which is great and it is their
money; they should do what they want with it. But do you see
any long-term challenge with relying more and more on private
philanthropy to fill the need here if we are not making the--
there seems to be broad-based support for this idea that this
is one of the essential areas of basic responsibilities of
government, yet an unwillingness to make that commitment.
Dr. Holdren. I don't like the idea of calling it reliance
on the philanthropic sector. I think we should welcome the
engagement of the philanthropic sector and funding research in
general and basic research in particular. And there is a new
consortium of major private foundations which is working
together to try to boost funding for basic research rather
than, as you note, targeted research.
There is a lot of the latter. We have some very important
philanthropic support for the BRAIN Initiative----
Mr. Kennedy. Um-hum.
Dr. Holdren. --that this Administration has launched from a
number of private foundations, but we are getting support as
well for increased philanthropic funding of basic research. But
that does not mean that the country can rely on that. It is not
going to be big enough. The government needs to continue to
meet its fundamental responsibility to support basic research
in this country. We would like to be able to support more of it
in this budget, and again, we will support more of it in this
budget if we get the Opportunity, Growth, and Security
Initiative supported by Congress.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the extra time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Holdren, always a pleasure to have you here.
I wonder if you could give us a status on the supply,
availability, inventory of Pu-238 and any other nuclear fuel we
may need to travel in space?
Dr. Holdren. My understanding is that there is a new
agreement between NASA and the Department of Energy on
producing plutonium-238 for our space missions, and I believe
that that agreement will be to meeting the needs that we
foresee.
Mr. Posey. How much do we have in stock now?
Dr. Holdren. I would have to get back to you on what is
actually in the stockpile at this moment.
Mr. Posey. Are you aware that they are getting rid of
anything that we have in inventory now?
Dr. Holdren. I am not sure what you mean by ``getting rid
of.''
Mr. Posey. That there may be plans to eliminate part of the
inventory that we now have.
Dr. Holdren. I am not aware of any such plans, but I will
look into it. This is something I would have to explore with
the Department of Energy.
Mr. Posey. Okay. Do you have a pretty good idea of how long
it takes to purify this plutonium and how much it costs to do
that?
Dr. Holdren. Not off the top of my head. I would expect
that in terms of production, we are talking about a timescale
of six months to a couple of years I would guess.
Mr. Posey. And a whole bunch of money, but if you would
check on that and seriously get with me and let me know the
status of it----
Dr. Holdren. Happy to do that.
Mr. Posey. We had somebody here from the National Science
Foundation, who had actually--who said she wasn't a scientist
and so couldn't answer any questions. And I was just curious. I
asked her how many Ice Ages she thought that this Earth had
been through. I mean everything I can gather a minimum of
three, a maximum some say from five to seven, but I just want
to know how many Ice Ages you think we have gone through?
Dr. Holdren. Well, again, I don't remember off the top of
my head. I think the numbers you mentioned are in the ballpark
but I would have to look at the record. The Earth has undergone
climate changes throughout its entire history. The difference
is that for most of that history there weren't seven billion
people on the planet who needed to be fed, clothed, and kept
prosperous, and the other difference is----
Mr. Posey. Okay.
Dr. Holdren. --that the pace of change was generally much
slower.
Mr. Posey. I am running out of time. I am running out of
time. I am aware of that.
You know, obviously we have had global warming for a long
time. You can't have one seamless Ice Age that encompasses
three Ice Ages. We had to have warming periods between each one
of those. And so it is a natural phenomenon and, you know, just
because we are alive now, the tectonic plate shifts aren't
going to stop, the hurricanes and tsunamis aren't going to
stop, the asteroid strikes aren't going to stop. These things
have gone on for eons and they are going to continue to go on
for eons.
What do you think the temperature was on Earth before the
disappearance of the dinosaurs?
Dr. Holdren. There have been periods when the temperature
was three, four, five degrees Celsius warmer than it is now,
and the difference between the circumstances you are describing
and the circumstance we are in now is the changes that are
being imposed on the climate, in substantial part as a result
of human activity, are faster than the ability of ecosystems to
adapt and maybe even more importantly faster than the ability
of human society to adapt. There are a lot of stresses, as you
point out, that we can't control, but the stresses we can
control that are imposing burdens on our society we ought to
think about controlling.
Mr. Posey. No doubt about that. And I don't think there is
anyone--I haven't heard anyone say ever from either side of the
spectrum that there is no such thing as climate change. I mean
it is--we have had climate change since the day the Earth was
formed, whenever that was depending on how--whatever you
believe, and we will have climate change until the day the
Earth implodes, whenever that is.
The question is how much of the climate change do you think
is influenced by human behavior?
Dr. Holdren. The climate change we are experiencing now,
the climate change we have been experiencing for the last
several decades is, according to the Academies of Science,
according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
according to the view of most of the scientists who work on
this, largely due to human activity. We are superimposing on a
slow natural climate change a rapid human-induced climate
change.
Mr. Posey. But as a percentage, like you anticipate the
climate would change X amount in a year without the existence
of humans on it, how much more do you think as a percentage of
the change is influenced by human behavior?
Dr. Holdren. The natural changes which we understand and
which are underway on a long-term basis as we speak would, if
they were the only influences, be cooling the planet rather
than warming it. We would be in a long-term cooling trend as a
result of the natural forces affecting climate that we
understand. We are instead in a warming trend which suggests
that human activity is overwhelmingly responsible for the
difference. We would be having cooling based on natural forces.
We are having warming.
Mr. Posey. I remember in the '70s that was a threat. We are
going to have a cooling that is going to eventually freeze the
planet and that was the fear before Gore invented the Internet,
or the other terms.
I had read that during the period of the dinosaurs, the
Earth's temperature was 30 degrees warmer. Does that seem
fathomable to you?
Dr. Holdren. Thirty degrees sounds like a stretch to me but
I will review the literature and get back to you.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Dr. Holdren, very much.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Posey.
The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Kilmer, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Bera. Mr. Kilmer is not here so----
Chairman Smith. Dr. Bera for his questions, the gentleman
from California.
Mr. Bera. Great, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
Dr. Holdren, for being here.
Obviously, we are in a very competitive global environment.
We are in a very competitive global economy and, you know, that
is not going to change in the near future. The one area that we
do have a very competitive advantage over the rest of the world
is in innovation. And clearly, we are still the most innovative
country in the world; we are still the most innovative economy
in the world, but we also recognize that we are starting to
lose that advantage by not making the necessary investments to
continue to move things forward.
We also recognize that many of my colleagues have touched
on the importance of training scientists and engineers to
continue that economic advantage. Recently, I had a town hall
at Intel with--Intel has a major presence in my district and I
had the chance to meet with their leadership to talk about
their future investments but also talk about their challenges.
And clearly, one of the challenges that their leadership
brought up was the lack of availability of engineers and also
the lack of availability of folks that know how to write code.
On this Committee we have also had a hearing on that as well
and it is--you know, we have the folks from code.org testify.
There are two things that really jump out in my mind. One,
they said, you know, it can't happen at the college level. If
we actually want to start our kids on coding and teach them
those skills, it has to happen at the elementary school level.
And, Dr. Holdren, I would be curious about your comments.
Within the President's budget, within the STEM budget, if we
truly want to have our kids not just learn reading, writing,
and arithmetic but also have them learn the language of the
future, which, you know, increasingly appears to be coding, are
there initiatives both to put that into part of the Common Core
as well as one of the challenges that repeatedly comes up is
the lack of educators who actually know how to teach that
coding as well and if there is funding to train the trainers or
train the teachers?
Dr. Holdren. Well, I would make--sorry. I would make a
couple of comments on that. One, there is certainly funding in
the President's budget for recruiting, preparing, and
supporting more outstanding teachers in the STEM fields, which
would include teachers who know how to code and who know how to
teach coding. There is $40 million in the budget to support the
goal of preparing 100,000 excellent STEM teachers over the next
decade. There is $20 million to launch a pilot STEM master
teacher corps.
In addition, I would note that we have a problem with
inadequate exploitation of the talent pool. Women are
drastically underrepresented in engineering and in computer
science. African-Americans and Hispanics are drastically
underrepresented in these fields, and we have a series of
programs aimed at improving inclusion opportunities for girls
and women in STEM fields, opportunities for other
underrepresented groups, including minorities. We have had a
lot of effort on that front just in the last couple months in
connection with Black History Month and then Women's History
Month. And tapping a larger fraction of the Nation's talent
pool for these purposes is going to be a very important part of
the solution.
Mr. Bera. Dr. Holdren, I am glad that you brought that up.
I think the statistic that was quoted to me last week was it is
less than 20 percent of all of our engineers are women at this
juncture, the ones that are graduating. If you were to
recommend to--again I think this committee has a desire to
train those folks to fill those future jobs. What
recommendations would you have for us as a body in getting more
girls to think about engineering futures and careers, as well
as some of the minority groups that are certainly
underrepresented?
Dr. Holdren. Well, this will seem very self-serving but I
would hope that the Committee will support the President's
budget in this domain because it has a lot of focus on those
issues.
Mr. Bera. Great. Last question. In my remaining time, the
other area that I have focused on certainly is--as research
budgets get tighter and so forth, one area that, you know,
coming out of a background in higher education as an associate
dean in a public university, research funding is becoming
increasingly tight and we have talked a little bit about what
we can do to enhance technology transfer and so forth. Do you
have any recommendations that are both within the President's
budget to allow the private sector to come in at an earlier
phase?
Dr. Holdren. Well, the President has been a strong advocate
from the outset of his Administration of strengthening
partnerships between the private sector, the academic sector,
and including the national laboratories in that. The National
Network for Manufacturing Innovation is a good example of that.
The Energy Hubs that the DOE has set up are great examples of
that. They are bringing private sector enterprises together
with folks from research universities and national labs to
build partnerships to grease the tracks if you will between
discovery in the laboratory and a productive application in
society. And we want to continue to do that and there is
substantial support for that in the President's Fiscal Year
2015 budget.
Mr. Bera. Well, fabulous. We look forward to supporting
those investments.
I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Bera.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Collins, is recognized.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wasn't attempting to go down this road, Dr. Holdren, but
you stated really twice today that SOFIA would be a priority
under OGSI with increased funding, certainly implying very
directly that SOFIA is an Administration priority. I would like
to direct your attention to statements by NASA that actually
brags about cutting SOFIA's budget to fund other programs.
And I have here a letter, a document from OGSI that
specifically states how they would spend the extra money, the
$187 million. SOFIA is not listed there twice. I would like to
ask you very directly why you have left this Committee with the
impression, very direct impression, that SOFIA is a priority
for the Administration where clearly it is not?
Dr. Holdren. What I have said is SOFIA was ranked behind
several other----
Mr. Collins. Okay. So what you are admitting is it is not a
priority.
Dr. Holdren. --but----
Mr. Collins. Is it or is it not a priority?
Dr. Holdren. In better financial times----
Mr. Collins. I am asking a direct question.
Dr. Holdren. In better funding times----
Mr. Collins. Would you answer the question, sir?
Dr. Holdren. --we would support SOFIA----
Mr. Collins. Is it a priority or not?
Dr. Holdren. It is a lower priority than the things----
Mr. Collins. Okay. Thank you, sir----
Dr. Holdren. --that we are funding.
Mr. Collins. --because you have implied it differently
today and I don't appreciate the implication. It is
hypocritical and disingenuous to leave this committee with the
impression SOFIA was a priority and it is clearly not.
So my next line of questions concerns security on
Healthcare.gov. I Chair the Subcommittee on Healthcare and
Technology in Small Business. We have had folks here on both
sides of the aisle testify. Healthcare.gov was not secure when
it was launched, is not secure today, and we have been
attempting to get Mr. Todd Park to testify in front of this
Committee on three occasions. The Administration has refused to
make him available, and yet clearly Mr. Todd Park has had
involvement in Healthcare.gov, and certainly with his
background and his position now as an advisor to the President
would and should have been involved with the security issues.
So, you know, I guess, you know, I can read all the times
Mr. Park has been involved, his involvement with CMS, his
involvement with various meetings, his attendance at all these
meetings and just have to ask you once again, in light of all
the information and all the meetings and all the involvement of
Mr. Park, how can your office state, which they have done just
again recently with a letter to Chairman Smith, that none of
your personnel have been involved with Healthcare.gov? Pretty
bold statement.
Dr. Holdren. We have not said that none of our personnel
have been involved with Healthcare.gov. Mr. Park in particular
was asked by the President--after the problems with
Healthcare.gov materialized after its rollout, he was asked to
become heavily involved. He has been very heavily involved in
trying to address the problems of the website since that time.
Mr. Collins. So you are implying----
Dr. Holdren. We never said no----
Mr. Collins. --he had no involvement prior to the launch?
Dr. Holdren. We said his involvement has not been primarily
associated with the security of the site. He is not a
cybersecurity expert and the responsibility for the security of
the site rested with CMS and with the interacting activities of
CRS, the IRS, and the Social Security Administration.
Mr. Collins. So you are suggesting that he was blindsided
by the problems in this, had no knowledge of this as the
advisor to the President, and all of a sudden when all of the
problems, including experts who said this website should never
have been launched, it was not secure the day it was launched,
it is not secure today, Americans' privacy is in danger, their
identity theft is real, and so you are saying this Mr. Park--
and that is why we want him to testify here. So let me just cut
to the chase. Why won't you allow him to testify?
Dr. Holdren. It has been the practice of this
Administration from the beginning that assistants to the
President who are not Senate-confirmed do not testify. We have
other people who are experts in cybersecurity who are willing
to testify before this Committee on cybersecurity issues. Mr.
Park is not an expert in the cybersecurity aspects of the
Healthcare.gov website and he is a direct report to the
President of the United States. I can't compel him to come and
testify. He doesn't report to me. I am not sure what else you
want for an answer.
Mr. Collins. Well, you know, much like SOFIA, I would like
a more direct answer, not a dance like you have been dancing
today. And the fact is the experts have testified that the
website was not secure the day it was launched, it is not
secure today, and yet, your office and others within your
office are now just claiming ignorance; you had no idea this
was coming. You woke up one day, oh my goodness, it is not
secure. I think you--again, today, I have been very
disappointed in your testimony, disingenuous, not direct, and I
think deliberately misleading to this Committee.
And with that, Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Collins.
The gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Esty, is recognized.
Ms. Esty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr.
Holdren, for your many decades of service to this country and
your willingness to serve in this challenging time.
I wanted to briefly touch on three topics: first, STEM
education, which I think you have now gathered is an extremely
high priority of this Committee; secondly, the regional
innovation initiatives; and third, climate change resiliency.
I am very glad to hear that you mentioned the importance of
including and reaching out to young women and to children of
color. We cannot be competitive in the 21st century, globally
competitive if we are leaving 60 percent of our workforce out
of the STEM fields. So if you can elaborate on that aspect of
how exactly you plan to do that. I would also recommend to you
and ask you how you are reaching out to local stakeholders.
I come from Connecticut. We have local companies like
Stanley Black & Decker who are partnering with places like the
Connecticut Science Center as well as our local community
colleges, like Naugatuck Valley Community Colleges. They are
working together with our local manufacturers to try to design
some of these programs. I brought astronauts into the inner-
city to meet with middle school students to inspire them about
the opportunities that are available.
Can you talk a little bit with us about what efforts, going
forward, the Administration is going to utilize to engage these
local stakeholders to make sure that our programs actually will
work on the ground?
Dr. Holdren. Sure. Let me mention a couple of elements of
the Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal that address those issues.
One is the STEM Innovation Networks. There is $110 million to
help school districts individually and in consortia build
partnerships, STEM Innovation Networks that would be
partnerships with businesses, universities, museums, federal
science agencies, and other entities to basically transform
STEM teaching and learning and, I would add, inspiration by
developing coordinated plans to do that in the STEM fields.
There is $150 million in the budget in a program to
redesign high schools to teach real-world skills basically
relating to the earlier point that Congressman Kennedy was
making as well to rethink the high school experience,
challenging schools to scale up innovative models that provide
rigorous and relevant education including for folks that are
not going to go on to college but are going to go into high
skills careers.
The Network of Manufacturing Innovation Institutes will
also be obviously a regionally focused set of efforts to link
up schools, universities, national labs, businesses to the ends
of that you are discussing.
Ms. Esty. That is a great point to segue to the regional
innovation centers, strong--I am strongly supportive of the
efforts to expand those centers. I think they are going to be
critically important to have this sort of innovation and
linkage we need from basic research in our high-tech research
universities, places like UConn whose medical center is in my
district, Yale, which is right nearby, with our local
communities, community colleges, high schools, elementary
schools----
Dr. Holdren. Um-hum.
Ms. Esty. --as well, and our manufacturers. So I am
strongly supportive of efforts to expand those efforts.
Dr. Holdren. Right.
Ms. Esty. And one thing I would like to flag that we have
learned since this is a real passion of mine and very important
to my district, it is going to be really important to engage
the private sector in providing internship possibilities for
students. Many of the--and this goes back to the inner cities
in part and to girls. They need to have the opportunity to work
and see in environments where they are actually doing this
during the summer in a workplace setting where they understand
the soft side skills as well as the culture, and that is
critically important to inspire them and encourage them to
pursue these fields, which are often very tough. So I just want
to make a plug for that.
Coming from the Northeast, living through this extremely
challenging last couple of years, I would like quickly with the
time I have remaining your thoughts about the climate
resiliency--climate change resiliency theme in the budget
through NOAA and EPA about the development of a climate change
resilience toolkit and web portal? And how will improved access
for this data help protect our communities on the impacts of
climate change? And it seems more focused on attention to
understanding and mitigating regional impacts. And can you sort
of describe the reason to take that approach?
Dr. Holdren. Okay. And very quickly, before I answer the
last question, I do want to mention that the America COMPETES
Act in 2010 authorized a number of Department of Commerce
programs focused on regional innovation, and the President has
proposed those. The Congress has funded them. They have created
a variety of regional innovation clusters and partnerships of
the sorts I described, so I think that is something we remain
committed to in partnership with the Congress.
We just rolled out last week the first tranche of the
Climate Data Initiative, which is one of the elements of the
President's Climate Action Plan. That Climate Data Initiative
is being led by NOAA and NASA but has participation from a wide
variety of other departments and agencies. The aim of it is to
provide data that is transparent and informative and rigorous
that local and regional decision-makers, communities,
businesses, farmers, fishermen, individual citizens can use to
better anticipate what climate change will be doing in their
regions or their localities and to be better able to take steps
to prepare for it and to minimize the damages that result from
it.
The first focus of the Climate Data Initiative is on sea
level rise and coastal flooding. The next phase will be looking
at agriculture. The phase after that I think will be looking at
impacts on health. It will be followed by a resilience toolkit
that provides a variety of applications which will make it
easier for people to make use of these data, understanding what
they mean, and applying them to their local needs.
Climate change obviously is a problem that is global in its
origins and in its dynamics but its effects are local, and that
is why the focus of the Climate Data Initiative and the whole
resilience and preparedness approach is local and regional,
because climate change is not uniform and people in different
regions and localities need to be prepared for what is going to
happen there.
Ms. Esty. Thank you. And I appreciate your indulgence, Mr.
Chairman, in letting him finish the answer to that question.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Esty.
The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Schweikert, is recognized.
Mr. Schweikert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Professor, I have got to tell you, out of all the positions
in government, you actually I think may have one of the most
interesting jobs but you also have an interesting effect on
what the future, long after you and I are probably gone, will
have.
I will do my best here to sort of have a linear thought in
these questions. The--in your discussions with the
Administration--and the first one I am going to ask you about
is the ICANN decision recently. I am a great believer that sort
of egalitarian access, you know, crowdsourcing of information
and data being available is crucially important and it is also
sort of the ultimate vetting of what is out there in science.
Has there been any discussion of protocols of what will be done
to make sure that if we have given up dominance of sort of
internet policy, that that dominance won't be taken by whether
it be the U.N. where the majority of member states are not, you
know, free democracies, how do we make sure that the world has
sort of an open free speech environment on the internet?
Dr. Holdren. There has of course been discussion of that.
It is a focus of ours. We are certainly not giving up influence
and it is not our intention to allow the internet to go in a
direction that imperils free speech.
Mr. Schweikert. One of my real concerns here is that, you
know, as Americans we are all free speech advocates but I
believe the head administrator of ICANN now has often spoken
that he would like a U.N. body. Well, you and I know the
majority of member states in the U.N. aren't anywhere near
where we are culturally in the protection of free exchange of
speech. So it is just--it is a real concern. Has this at least
hit a high level of discussion?
Dr. Holdren. It has. We are concerned about it, too, and we
are determined to hold the line.
Mr. Schweikert. Why would we have made sort of the
statement that we are going to walk away from sort of our
managerial control until that sort of underlying agreement was
designed?
Dr. Holdren. This is not my field of expertise and I am not
sufficiently familiar with the arguments that were gone
through. I know they were intensive. As in many other domains,
this is an area where globalization has been going on and it is
sometimes difficult to retain a position of absolute dominance
over time when that is happening. But I would be happy to get
back to you----
Mr. Schweikert. It is just----
Dr. Holdren. --with more information about that process.
Mr. Schweikert. --as you know, for many of us who are, you
know, free speech advocates, we always have a concern that we
are paying for NSA sin in perception, so just where that may
be.
Science advisory body, the advice, the information that is
often given to agencies that are asking for direction and
modeling, this Committee is dominant in the statute that
actually creates. What do you think your obligations are or the
advisory board--or body's obligation is to respond to our
inquiries? Because my fear is there is advice being given to
agencies and we say tell us--you share with us the direction
you are going there and we get stonewalled.
Dr. Holdren. Well, I am not sure what in particular you are
referring to. My office--the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy is of course responsible for providing above
all science and technology advice to the President and his
other senior advisers----
Mr. Schweikert. Well, but if----
Dr. Holdren. --but I testify regularly before Congress and
our reports, which embody the bulk of our advice, are available
on our website----
Mr. Schweikert. Well, but no. We had already had several
occasions on this Committee where we have reached out to--is it
ERDDA--and said share with us the advice you are giving to
certain agencies and we don't get it back.
And let me sort of do a hop-skip and we can--and I will
even follow up with this one in writing. Congressman Neugebauer
was asking a question about within the budget line, the study
of hydraulic fracturing horizontal drilling, correct?
Dr. Holdren. Yes, he was asking.
Mr. Schweikert. And within that, part of his question he
was trying to ask is you have designed budget line items but
yet you apparently haven't actually designed what the study is
going to look like.
Dr. Holdren. Oh, the study is underway.
Mr. Schweikert. Then when we had asked for how are you
doing your sample set, are you reviewing the literature? Are
you sending people out to do actual, you know, hard samples?
How come we are having trouble getting that information
delivered to us?
Dr. Holdren. I had not been aware that you were having
trouble but if you direct that inquiry to me, I will provide
you with answers.
Mr. Schweikert. So could you at least commit to myself or
more importantly the Chairman, could we have the design plan? I
have a fixation on baseline data sampling because I believe it
often ends up--you know, we often talk about the modeling that
you and I know your first sin is always--or your first
cornerstone is in how you choose to collect the data. So if you
would be willing to provide us a plan on how the study is built
and obviously that would be reflected in the budget request,
that will go a long way for confidence in this Committee.
Dr. Holdren. Good. I will try to do that.
Mr. Schweikert. Last two things, and I know I am way over
time, there is some complement out there, but I also think we
need to make sure our friends on both sides understand some of
the groups you oversee have protocols on blinding personal
data. We do it in the census; we do it in medical research. And
so there is sort of a national standard for doing that. I do a
sample set. I have individual personal data. If that data is
going to be made public, you have a way of doing placeholders,
correct?
Dr. Holdren. Correct.
Mr. Schweikert. So--because we had sort of a bizarre
conversation in this Committee about six weeks ago where there
seemed to be a misunderstanding that there is--it is standard
protocol on how to blind individual data.
The last thing, do--who in your organization sort of
watches peer-review publications because I now have a binder on
my desk in my office now of articles where we are realizing how
much--I am uncomfortable using the word fraud but how many
outliers we are finding where really bad data is being used in
peer-reviewed studies, publications, grants, and how do we fix
that? And I am a believer that, you know, the crowd putting
things out in the internet and having lots of voices talk about
it will help us find where we are funding studies that the
underlying data sets either were grossly misinterpreted or
actually outright fraud.
Dr. Holdren. This is a really important issue. We devoted a
public session of the last meeting of the President's Council
of Advisors on Science and Technology to it. We invited the
editors-in-chief of both Nature and Science, the two most
important science journals in the world, plus a number of
experts on data and the pitfalls that occur. Within my
organization, the Associate Director for Science currently
awaiting confirmation is the person who has the most direct
oversight of that set of issues, but we are concerned about it.
We are interested in it--
Mr. Schweikert. Professor----
Dr. Holdren. --and we will look at it.
Mr. Schweikert. I am elated to hear that it is--because as
you know, so often we base public policy and spending and then
later find out there was something horribly wrong in that model
or the underlying samples or just outright fraud to get the
grant.
Can I beg of you, send me a note--send me something in
writing of who I should reach out to because I----
Dr. Holdren. Sure.
Mr. Schweikert. --actually have a powerful interest in
this----
Dr. Holdren. Yes.
Mr. Schweikert. --because of my concern that resources may
be going askew because of bad acts.
Dr. Holdren. I would be happy to respond to you----
Mr. Schweikert. And with that, I know I am way over time.
Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Schweikert.
The gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Holdren, welcome back. Thank you so much for your
testimony and for your work. I want to start by saying I am
glad to see the Administration acknowledged the importance of
the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. That was
several companies in Oregon who have benefited from the MEP
program so--through NIST. Thank you very much.
I am also encouraged to see the Administration focusing
resources on innovative energy projects at ARPA-E, specifically
the potential of battery technology. I recently spoke with
someone from a utility in Oregon, Portland General Electric,
and they recently installed a 5 megawatt lithium ion battery-
powered energy storage facility. It happens to be on top of the
Kettle brand facility rooftop, so we can think about that
whenever we are eating Kettle chips.
So that is in Salem, Oregon, and it is partially funded by
the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest Smart Grid
Demonstration Project, but they have learned an immense amount
about how efficient battery technology can help the grid
integrate renewable energy resources, so more R&D in battery
technology I see as a win-win. Really a common goal and what we
have been talking about throughout this hearing and all the
disciplines is how we keep our country competitive, how do we
have an innovative workforce.
I want to mention the Innovation Corps program with NSF to
commercialize university research, which you mentioned in your
testimony. I was wondering how that program will be structured
and I encourage you to look at the Oregon ONAMI, Oregon
Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute. They are doing
great work with commercialization of materials science and
systems technology.
I want to follow up on the STEM education discussion as
well. You referenced the 21st century community learning
centers, a way to bring STEM education outside the traditional
school day. I recently met with students at the Forest Grove,
Oregon, high school who are part of the 4-H Tech Wizards
afterschool program. That is a great opportunity for students
to engage outside of the school day.
And on that note, we have had great discussion already, Dr.
Bera and Representative Kennedy, and Representative Hultgren
mentioned the FIRST robotics program. Hands-on learning is so
important.
And I wanted to follow up on that. You may recall I am the
Co-Chair of the bipartisan STEAM Caucus, integrating arts and
design broadly defined into STEM learning. There is plenty of
research to show that educating and exercising the right brain
helps to educate creative and innovative students who become
innovators and entrepreneurs, and simply put, we want people
who cannot just answer questions but also know what questions
to ask.
So you talked about the updates to the STEM reorganization
plan for the Fiscal Year budget, and on the Hill we have
witnessed a growing consensus about how do we expand STEM
education. You mentioned reaching out to underrepresented
populations. So can you expand on whether that plan
acknowledges the benefit of including alternative approaches to
STEM education?
Dr. Holdren. Well, first of all, I commend your interest in
the STEAM approach and the progress being made with it. I think
it is important to remember the relevance of the humanities and
the arts as we think about our education portfolio overall. And
I think some of the kinds of activities that are in the various
programs listed under STEM undoubtedly are including these
other dimensions as well. I think many of the outreach and the
community-based programs are doing that, so basically, I could
only agree with your comments.
Ms. Bonamici. Well, thank you. The more we learn about the
parallels between the science and art--and the last time I
asked this question I mentioned a study that was done about the
number of Nobel laureates in sciences who also engage in arts
and crafts is phenomenal and they recommend that students
studying in the STEM disciplines also have art and crafts
experience. It really is hands-on learning but again leads to
that creativity and innovation that we want in our workforce.
And could you follow up a little bit about the Innovation
Corps and how that program will be structured through NSF to
help commercialize research?
Dr. Holdren. Well, that is a program that has already been
going on in NSF, and my understanding is that it is already
successful in basically including, in a number of the
activities that NSF funds, training on how to be an
entrepreneur, how to translate discoveries in the laboratory
into practical applications that can become the basis of
businesses and social good. So I think it is a great program. I
think it is working and we should continue to support it.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. My time is expired. I
yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici, appreciate that.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Dr.
Holdren. Appreciate you being back again.
I don't remember if it was Mark Twain or Will Rogers or
Ambrose Bierce or somebody like that that said all scientists
are only sure about one thing and that is that all scientists
before that were wrong. Have you ever heard that comment?
Dr. Holdren. I have heard of versions of it.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, who was it that said that? No idea.
So when you guys do your research you start with the
scientific--what do they call it--postulate or theory and you
work from that direction forward, is that right?
Dr. Holdren. It depends on what sort of science that you
are talking about, but the notion of posing a hypothesis and
then trying to determine whether it is right is one of the
tried-and-true approaches in science, yes.
Mr. Weber. So I am just wondering how that related to like,
for example, global warming and eventually global cooling? And
I may want to get your cell phone number because if we do go
through a couple cycles, global warming and then back to global
cooling, I will need to know when to buy my long coat on sale.
So I just don't know how you all prove those hypotheses going
back 50, 100, you know, what you might say is thousands of if
not even millions of years and how you postulate those forward.
But we will get into that in a little bit.
The Keystone pipeline I am very, very interested in because
it comes into my district, delivers 840,000 barrels of oil a
day. It will help get us off oil from the Middle East or
Venezuela and produce jobs over here. And the State Department
actually came out with a finding and said--it was one of those
scientific hopefully findings I guess--that ``the approval or
denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the
proposed project, is unlikely to significantly impact the rate
of extraction in the oil sands or the continued demand for
heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States.'' Do you
agree with that statement from the State Department?
Dr. Holdren. Well, I would say, number one, I have not done
a review----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Holdren. --at this point of the State Department's
analysis of that----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Holdren. --and not having looked at the analysis, I
don't want to say whether I agree with it or not----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Holdren. --but it is a respectable position. There are
others.
Mr. Weber. So they are from the government and they are
here to help.
So looking at your budget as you have put it forward in the
different areas there is one, like Congressman Neugebauer said,
on fracking where that study has never been done. Do you know
if there is any plans--in Texas--one of my other colleagues--
and maybe it was Congressman Neugebauer--refer to the fact that
we have been in fracking since 1945, which if my high school
math holds up would be 65 years.
Do you all ever think about perhaps getting with the
agencies in Texas that actually have that experience and that
deal with it every day? And in fact in Texas we would say we
have been doing it longer than anybody else. Any plans to get
with the TCEQ and those that have experience?
Dr. Holdren. I suspect that that outreach has happened as
part of the study----
Mr. Weber. Could that help your budget--would that help
your budget numbers go down because you could rely on their
experience?
Dr. Holdren. I suspect the budget numbers take into account
the fact that we have been reaching out to the constituencies
that do this.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Do you think that it is possible that if
we had more manufacturing jobs based on this energy renaissance
that we are about to experience if the government will get out
of the way--that if we had more manufacturing jobs, that we
could take more Americans off of the unemployment rolls and
welfare so to speak and that we could actually get more
taxpayers on the rolls and then we could actually have more
money for the budget to do the very thing you want to do, which
would be more research and to put more money into an all-of-
the-above energy program? Does that make sense to you?
Dr. Holdren. Absolutely it makes sense and the
Administration is all in favor of increasing the number of
manufacturing jobs, and we have been trying to do that in a
number of ways.
Mr. Weber. Well, they keep saying that, but looking at the
energy renaissance and the war on coal plants and the--I mean I
don't think that is deniable, war on coal plants and war on
fossil fuels and the dragging of the Keystone pipeline permit,
which has been now five years, five years.
Do you have any plans--do you weigh in with the President?
Do you say, Mr. President, in our--from our vantage point if
you would approve the permit, as the State Department said,
using the State Department language--it was an amendment I got
on a bill in the--through the House taking the permitting
process away from the President, do you have any--can you say
to the President, Mr. President, the State Department is saying
it is a go. What is the holdup?
Dr. Holdren. As I understand it, the ball on that issue is
still in the State Department's court. That was an analysis.
The Secretary of State has not made a national interest
determination at this point and so we are awaiting that.
Mr. Weber. But you are the scientist. You have the budget--
you are putting together the budget. You want more research,
you want more money to do these kinds of things, and if we can
get more taxpayers, we can increase the budget, right?
Dr. Holdren. Absolutely. As I have said, we are in favor of
increasing manufacturing jobs in this country and it would
bring many benefits.
Mr. Weber. Well, I hope when you leave here you will call
the President and tell him you and I had this conversation and
I am recommending approval of the Keystone pipeline.
Thank you, Dr. Holdren.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell, is recognized.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr.
Holdren.
And, Dr. Holdren, I have to say I am disappointed that many
of my colleagues across the aisle have used this hearing,
titled key issues for the President's Fiscal Year 2015 research
and development budget, to re-litigate whether climate change
is happening and whether it is manmade, and at this rate,
frankly, I have to say you should be prepared to address
whether the Earth is round or flat; that might come up, or
whether indeed gravity is happening. You never know what can
fly at you from what we have seen already.
And I have to say that with 97 percent of the scientists
stating, and as you pointed out that that is an approximation
based on statistics, that climate change is manmade, I am
encouraged to see that some of my colleagues across the aisle
have been a voice for the minority, three percent of scientists
today.
This is encouraging for other minorities that my colleagues
across the aisle have not helped out, including immigrants who
are waiting for comprehensive immigration reform, minorities
like women who have not received equal pay for equal work,
minorities who are affected by the Voting Rights Act where
action has not taken, as well as gay and lesbian minorities who
have been oppressed by some of the policies that my colleagues
across the aisle have put in place.
So the colleagues who are standing up for the three percent
scientists who do not believe in climate change, I am
encouraged that they are now a voice for the minority.
But you are here to discuss the President's Fiscal Year
2015 budget, and I have a question first about the National
Ignition Facility, which is in my district in Livermore,
California. And I want to know, in light of the recent alpha
heating phenomenon that occurred there, do you still believe
that that fusion project is near the goal line and that
ignition is near achievement and what that means for future
rounds of funding?
Dr. Holdren. Well, first of all, I applaud the advances
that have been made at NIF over the past year. I think they are
important. I think it is still quite some distance from the
finish line. When you look at the energetics every step of the
way, there is considerably more progress that needs to be made
before we can say we actually have ignition, and there would be
more progress beyond that that would be needed to convert that
achievement into a workable fusion reactor. But the project is
well worth pursuing. The 329 million in the budget for pursuing
it should enable a good deal of further progress and I look
forward to seeing that.
Mr. Swalwell. I also wanted to talk a little bit about the
inertial fusion research that is in the budget, and
particularly that the National Ignition Facility and the Z
Pulsed Power Facility have enough technical promise to justify
dedicated federal support for inertial fusion R&D relevant to
energy, not just weapons reliability, as Ms. Lofgren pointed
out.
However, there is currently no program in the federal
government which directly officially supports inertial fusion
research and technology developments activity for energy
production purposes. Rather, the Administration is proposing to
eliminate all of the activities in the Fusion Energy Sciences
program that could make important contributions to fusion
research, including an experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory that is only beginning to operate this year.
So my question is do you believe that the Department should
address the findings of this National Academies report, which
found that these concepts have technical promise and at least
find a way to allow strong merit-reviewed proposal for inertial
fusion energy research to be eligible for federal support?
Dr. Holdren. Let me make a couple of quick comments. We of
course are aware of the National Academies report. We recognize
the progress that has been made in inertial confinement fusion
in a number of different ways, with the lasers, with pulse
power, with ion beams. Those approaches of course have not yet
demonstrated the level of performance that would be needed to
convert them into an energy source. They are in fact still well
short of the performance of the magnetic confinement approach,
which is being pursued in parallel.
Under the budget restraints we face, we think the most
important thing to continue funding in the inertial confinement
space is the NIF and its progression toward ignition.
The experiment you mentioned at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab
is a small one completed at a cost of about $11 million. It
began operating two years ago but it has fallen far short of
its design specifications and so it is hard to keep it near the
top of the priority list given the tight budget and the
performance shortfalls in that particular device.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Dr. Holdren. Thank you for your
service to our country, for your belief in science, and for now
knowing what to be better prepared to discuss next time you
come back, including whether gravity is really occurring and
whether our Earth is flat or round.
Thank you and I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Swalwell.
Dr. Holdren, thank you for your testimony today. We
appreciate that very much.
Our record will stay open for a couple of weeks in case
Members have additional questions to submit. And with that, we
stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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