[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PROPOSAL
FOR THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
March 22, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-70
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
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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
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
STEVE KNIGHT, California PAUL TONKO, New York
BRIAN BABIN, Texas MARK TAKANO, California
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois
------
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
GARY PALMER, Alabama ERIC SWALWELL, California
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
March 22, 2016
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Subcommittee on
Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 17
Written Statement............................................ 18
Witness:
The Honorable France Cordova, Director, National Science
Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 23
Dr. Dan E. Arvizu, Chairman, National Science Board
Oral Statement............................................... 35
Written Statement............................................ 37
Discussion....................................................... 43
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Cordova, Director, National Science Foundation
(NSF).......................................................... 54
Dr. Dan E. Arvizu, Chairman, National Science Board.............. 65
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 16
Written Statement............................................ 72
AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PROPOSAL
FOR THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara
Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
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Chairwoman Comstock. Good afternoon. The Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Committee at any time.
Welcome to today's hearing titled ``An Overview of the
Budget Proposal for the National Science Foundation for Fiscal
Year 2017.'' I now recognize myself for five minutes for an
opening statement.
As we discussed before the hearing, we may be called for
votes shortly, so our apologies. We'll try to get in as much as
we can before that.
I would first like to thank our witnesses for appearing
today to discuss the National Science Foundation's fiscal year
2017 budget request and other Foundation issues.
The 2017 discretionary budget request for NSF totals $7.56
billion, an increase of approximately $100 million, or 1.3
percent, over the fiscal year 2016 enacted level.
NSF is the primary source of federal funding for non-
medical basic research and supports through 12,000 competitive
grants a year over 377,000 scientists, engineers, educators and
students across the country.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Actually, I may just yield to my
colleague and I will see if I can--sorry for that. Thank you.
Mr. Lipinski. As the Chairwoman recuperates there, I want
to thank the Chairwoman and the Chair of the Committee for
holding this hearing. Welcome to Dr. Cordova and Dr. Arvizu.
The NSF is central to our mation's leadership in science
and technology, and I think it's important that more people
understand the critical role that NSF plays. NSF supports
fundamental research across all fields of science and
engineering, and that research serves as the foundation on
which our knowledge of our own world and the worlds beyond is
expanded, our innovation economy is built, and our quality of
life is improved.
Over time, NSF has become the primary source of support for
basic research across many fields, including the biological
sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, and computer
science.
The fiscal year 2017 budget request for NSF includes new
mandatory budget authority. I like to think of myself as an
optimist, but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which there is
agreement anytime soon on new mandatory funding. I wish,
therefore, that the Administration had found additional support
in the discretionary budget for the Foundation. I hope that my
colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, in making their own
very difficult tradeoffs, will once again find a way to provide
an increase for NSF.
Having said that, I'd like to highlight a few programs and
initiatives in the budget that stand out to me. I see that NSF
is not proposing any major new cross-agency research
initiatives in fiscal year 2017. However, the ongoing
initiatives in Risk and Resilience; Innovations at the Nexus of
Food, Energy, and Water Systems, known as INFEWS; Understanding
the Brain; Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace; and many other
that are in there remain in the budget are essential
investments, and I want to commend NSF for continuing to break
down disciplinary barriers to address grand challenges for
science and technology, and for our nation.
In particular, I am glad to see the investments being made
in the Innovation Corps program and in the Smart and Connected
Communities Initiative. As the leading proponent of the I-Corps
program from when NSF first created it, it's been a great--it's
great to see that it's been a great success. With minimal NSF
educational funding, many startups coming out of I-corps-
trained teams have already received venture capital funding,
and I look forward to more innovation and jobs coming from
graduates of the program. In addition, the White House
announced at the August Demo Day the partnerships that the NSF
I-Corps program created with several new agency partners
including DHS and the Defense Department. This demonstrates
that NSF's I-Corps program also works within the government. I
hope this will help other agencies see what NSF has long known,
that the I-Corps model dramatically helps in translating
research into new technology and new jobs.
Similarly with Smart and Connected Communities, we are
seeing more and more the impact that connected devices have on
our lives as well as the promise they hold for the future. The
early examples that we have seen in transportation with
connected and autonomous vehicles are just a small piece of
what could be possible when we adopt a ``Smart Cities''
approach to integrating technology into traditionally
disconnected devices. Cross-cutting research is needed to drive
these changes, and I'm glad that NSF is taking a leadership
role here.
With respect to the Education and Human Resources
Directorate, I am interested in the systems approach that Dr.
Cordova is taking to broaden participation in STEM in the
INCLUDES initiative, so I look forward to discussion and
progress reports on that effort. I am especially pleased to see
the increase for the Cybersecurity Scholarship for Service
program. The shortage of a skilled cybersecurity workforce in
both government and the private sector is well documented, and
has significantly--and has significant consequences for our
national and economic security. However, I do have concerns
about the proposed discretionary budget cuts to the Informal
STEM Learning Research program and the STEM-C Partnerships
program, so I look forward to an explanation of the status of
those programs.
Finally, I anticipate that there will be some discussion
today about prioritizing some fields of science over others. So
let me conclude by quoting from our colleague, Chairman
Culberson, Chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science
Subcommittee of Appropriations. Following his own hearing last
week with Dr. Cordova, in which he stated clearly that he does
not want to appropriate by directorate at NSF, he said, ``I
think that we should let NSF pick the most promising areas and
give the agency the flexibility to pursue them.'' I strongly
agree with Mr. Culberson on those points.
Thank you again, and I look forward to hearing the
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski, and given my
limited--what this cold is doing to me, I'm going to yield now
and recognize the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair, and let me welcome
Dr. Cordova and Dr. Arvizu here as well.
In the interest of time, because we're expecting votes to
be called in five minutes, I'm going to ask unanimous consent
that my opening statement be made a part of the record.
I simply want to add also that I just had a good
conversation with Dr. Cordova in my office, and how shall we
say this euphemistically? We exchanged views on some of the
questions that I intended to ask today, all except one, and
perhaps if she could address that in her opening statement,
then I will not need to ask questions later on, and that is,
how is the National Science Foundation implementing the STEM
Act and prioritizing computer science in its STEM Education
Grants. I know she's familiar with that bill that passed, and I
want to thank her for support of that legislation. I'm just
curious how National Science Foundation is implementing that
piece of legislation.
And with that, I'll yield back in hopes that we can get
underway before the votes come. Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and now I'll
introduce our witnesses and see how far I can get through.
Our first witness today is the Honorable France Cordova,
Director of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Cordova was
sworn in as Director in March 2014. She is President Emerita of
Purdue University, where she served as President from 2007 to
2012. From 1993 to 1996, Cordova was Chief Scientist at NASA,
and she is a recipient of NASA's highest honor, the
Distinguished Service Medal. She has a B.A. from Stanford
University and a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute
of Technology.
The Honorable Dan Arvizu, our second witness, is the
Chairman of the National Science Board. In 2004, he was
appointed by President George W. Bush for a six-year term on
the National Science Board. In 2010, he was reappointed to a
second six-year term. In 2012, he was elected as Chairman of
the NSB. He is the Director Emeritus of the Department of
Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and he has a
bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from New
Mexico State University and a master of science degree and
Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford.
I now recognize Doctor--actually, first I will enter my
statement for the record also. My apologies. But we'll move
through here, and I now recognize Dr. Cordova for five minutes
to present her testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. CORDOVA,
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF)
Dr. Cordova. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Chairwoman
Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, Congresswoman Bonamici,
Congresswoman Esty, good afternoon.
In my written testimony, I've addressed specific aspects of
our fiscal year 2017 budget request. NSF believes that this
budget would substantially further the progress of science.
We like to say that NSF is where discoveries begin.
Increasing the breadth and depth of knowledge that can come
from specific exploration and discovery is the goal of NSF.
The past year has been one of notable scientific
discoveries from every domain supported by NSF. I only have
time in my opening remarks to mention one such discovery. Just
last month, scientists from the NSF-supported Laser
Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory announced the
first direct detection of a gravitational wave, a landmark
discovery that reflects decades of investment and that opens a
new window on the universe. I'd like to thank the Committee for
holding a hearing on the topic of this discovery, and we
appreciate Congress's recognition and support for this great
experiment.
We also like to say that NSF is where discoverers begin.
Many times, scientists and engineers tells us that their first
grant was from NSF. Other federal agencies tell us that they
often fund projects which were first prototyped by NSF to
advance an original basic finding into application.
NOAA depends on NSF's funded NCAR for reliable numerical
weather prediction. Just last week, NCAR mapped the expected
transmission of the Zika virus in the United States,
information that will be useful to NIH, CDC, and of course, the
public.
NASA missions sometimes have their genesis in discoveries
first made with ground-based observations funded by the NSF. I
think of exoplanets, for example.
Many Nobel Prize winners were funded by NSF early in their
careers, some like the former Secretary of Energy Steve Chu,
and the founders of Google while they were graduate students.
Thus, increasing the STEM workforce, ensuring that it is ready
to take on the challenges of our increasingly technological
society and making STEM careers accessible to the wealth of
talent that this nation has to offer are also goals of NSF in
its new INCLUDES initiative.
NSF's budget after adjusting for inflation has increased
very little since 2003 with an annual growth rate of less than
one percent since then. In fact, since 2010, we've actually
seen a slight decline in research funding in constant dollars.
Yet in the same time period, the number of proposals has
dramatically increased. The result is that the fraction of
proposals that we can fund has decreased significantly. The
funding rate was 30 percent in fiscal year 2000 and is just
over 20 percent now.
Of great concern to us is that the situation is more
challenging for people who haven't previously received an NSF
award including young investigators. For them, the funding rate
has gone from 21 percent in fiscal year 2000 to 16 percent
today.
And for major center programs like the Science and
Technology Centers, the figures also highlight the intense
competition for funding. Fewer than two percent of the
applications we receive can be funded.
So imagine all the potential discovery science that is left
unfunded. In fact, the amount of additional money it would take
to fund all proposals rated very good to excellent in any given
year is $4 billion, $4 billion of worthy research left on the
cutting-room floor every year.
When a young investigator submits a proposal and it is
rated excellent but not funded, it can be an invitation to
leave the field of science. We are not only losing discoveries;
we're losing discoverers.
Thus, our fiscal year 2017 budget request starts to correct
the situation in order to accelerate the progress of U.S.
science, and accelerate it we must. The United States currently
ranks number 10 among all countries in research intensity. That
is the ratio of R&D expanded versus GDP. If we're to retain our
global leadership position, if we're to fully utilize the
talent inherent in our citizens, if we're to continue to make a
difference to our economy and our nation's security, we need to
accelerate our investment.
With an increase of $400 million requested in fiscal year
2017, we can't solve the $4 billion deficit that we have in our
funding rate but we can make a start. We would use the funds to
focus on early investigators within several years of their
Ph.D. We can give them an all-important start on careers in
science and engineering.
I'd also like to take a moment to note that in the last
year, NSF has made great progress in improving our efforts to
refine and explain our programs and processes in a transparent
and accountable manner. I'd be happy to discuss our efforts
further.
With your continued support, NSF looks forward to
supporting more discoverers and making more transformative
discoveries.
This concludes my testimony, Madam Chairwoman, and I'll be
pleased to answer any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cordova follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Mr. Arvizu.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DAN E. ARVIZU,
CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL SCIENCE BOARD
Dr. Arvizu. Chairman Smith and Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking
Member Lipinski, and other Members of the Subcommittee, I
appreciate the opportunity to speak with you in support of the
National Science Foundation's fiscal year 2017 request.
As NSF's governing body, one of the most important
functions of the National Science Board is to identify future
opportunities for the progress of science in the nation. NSB
wants to ensure that we continue to support scientific and
economic advances like those associated with NSF's leadership
in developing the internet in the 1980s and 1990s, and more
recently with nanotechnology. For the United States to remain
the world leader in research and innovation, NSF must continue
to push the frontiers of science, investing wisely without fear
of failure.
Seizing future opportunities requires a STEM-capable U.S.
workforce and the same unwavering long-term commitment to
scientific discovery that the United States has shown in the
past half-century.
A recent announcement by LIGO, for example, was only
possible because of decades of work by the scientific
community, NSF, Congress, and several Administrations along
with overall a billion dollars in unflinching federal support.
There are other such big scientific opportunities to pursue.
The question is whether the United States is committed to
leading the way.
Information and computational science offer one such
emerging opportunity. Advances in machine learning have
combined with big data to give us an entirely new tool set
creating areas of research and ability to solve problems that
have long defied solution.
Recently, neural networks and reinforcement learning, which
mimic human decision making, enabled Google's Alpha Go program
to beat legendary Go player four games to one. The impacts of
machine learning are foreshadowed by South Korea's response,
which is an $860-plus million artificial intelligence research
program. This is in partnership with Samsung and LG and Hyundai
going far beyond gaming and computer science.
In the next decade, big data and empirical modeling will
transform science much like calculus revolutionized physics and
computers remade engineering. These tools will let researchers
tackle heretofore elusive problems including questions in the
social behavior and economic sciences that are among our
hardest to crack. In the near future, we will be able to run
simulations and make predictions about these complex systems.
Let's consider how these tools are already transforming my
own area of research, the electric power sector. Our
electricity system is rigid, aging, and no longer able to meet
our future needs. Fortunately, technology advances are
providing the tools necessary to move beyond electricity as a
commodity and into delivering services. This requires new
investment in research to enable two-way power flow, new power
electronics, a myriad of sensors and control points, new
systems architectures built on layers of models and real-time
feedback, simulations and predictions. Harnessing this
complexity will make our future electric system reliable,
secure, clean, and affordable.
Predictable and increased investments in research is needed
to capture the benefits of massive data acquisition, empirical
modeling, data analytics, real-time feedback, and controls. As
my written testimony details, NSF's fiscal year 2017 budget
lays important groundwork to seize these opportunities.
Now, having highlighted these opportunities, I now wish to
call your attention to a significant near-term risk. NSF's
ability to accomplish its mission starts with the health of its
workforce and the organization, and our staff and critical
infrastructure that they rely on are supported by the Agency
Operation and Awards Management account, and recently the AOAM
account has been about four percent of the overall budget even
as the workload has increased significantly. In my 12 years on
the Board, NSB Chairs have consistently testified that the
account is under resourced. I fear that the consequences of the
shortfall will soon be evident. In fiscal year 2017, NSB
strongly supports full funding for the AOAM account.
My testimony in highlighting both opportunities and risks
underscores the seriousness with which the Board takes its
responsibilities to provide strong governance of taxpayers'
investments. In my written remarks, you'll find additional
details on these activities.
Just over 65 years ago, James Conant, the first Chair of
the National Science Board, portrayed NSF as a bold new
experiment. Noting the need for continued vision, patience, and
sustained investment, he wrote, ``No one should expect to be
able to assess in a short interval of time the value of the
money spent on scientific investigations. Even in the field of
applied science, research is in the nature of the long-term
investment.'' As I conclude my final term on the Board, I am
more convinced than ever that our long-term national investment
in fundamental science is essential to our future health,
security, and prosperity.
My colleagues and I thank you for your support of this bold
but essential request for advancing the endless frontier.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Arvizu follows:]
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Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize myself
for five minutes for questions.
Dr. Cordova, NSF's budget request calls for $70 million for
the Cyber Corps Scholarship for Service program. That's
certainly something this Committee has spent a lot of time on,
on cyber, so we appreciate that, and it's to recruit and train
the next generation of information security professionals. How
many new cybersecurity professionals will this investment be
able to train, and how does NSF work with industry to
understand their cyber workforce needs and to make sure we can
get people to come into this field knowing what the career path
will be. We've heard about delays in getting security
clearances on things. How do you work through all that and what
do you expect we'll see?
Dr. Cordova. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. I don't know
all the details, and so we'll get back to you on some of them,
but I do know that with the $20 million augmentation, we're
going to especially focus on what I like to think of as the
Reserve Corps, the people that go through the Cyber Corps
program, and we're working closely with universities on
providing a really quality curriculum so that they are well
trained, and a lot of very prominent research universities,
universities in general, have stepped up to this challenge and
are doing so.
We want to make sure that the alumni of the program and the
people who do scholarship for service after they've graduated
then can be used as a resource in following years to come back
and engage as they're needed on security matters, and that
means a different level of continuous training. It's the same
as if you were a doctor and you were continuously training, or
a legal professional, and so that's really the emphasis of the
new $20 million.
As far as the number of students currently being trained, I
know we are matched so much by the private sector and by
universities themselves, who are very interested in providing
this curriculum, I just don't have a number that I can share
with you. It's a big partnership, and it's really, really
growing. There's like a tidal wave of people coming into
computer science in general.
Chairwoman Comstock. I'd also like to ask you about STEM
education, which we've obviously been funding, and actually
earlier this afternoon we were working on some of those issues
with this Committee and with my colleague, Congresswoman Esty,
and others on the Committee. So, you know, every year we are
trying to place a larger emphasis on the subject, and you know,
we still hear the frustrating statistics that we're falling
behind worldwide.
What have we learned from previous investments in STEM
about what is really working and advancing? Is it getting kids
at a younger age? You know, how do we, you know, keep the
continuum going? What are the things that we're finding are,
you know, most helpful?
Dr. Cordova. That's a very big question. Would you mind if
I just started with Chairman Smith's question with responding
to that? Because that leads us right into your question with
the STEM Education Act of 2015. That added computer science to
the definition of STEM, so this ties to your previous question.
We're implementing the legislation by ensuring that our STEM
education programs are open to all fields of STEM including
computer science. In addition, we've included some new goals in
fiscal year 2017 including computer science for all, which
partners with the Department of Education, and I visited with
the Secretary of Education about this last week, and the
private sector to ensure that all students in the nation have
access to computer science education. So I hope, Chairman
Smith, that that is a partial response to your question.
On the larger question of what we're learning, we--NSF is
always engaged in evaluation and assessment of its programs,
and that applies as well to our STEM education programs. In
fact, you will see a request in the fiscal year 2017 budget for
more money for evaluation and assessment and more money for
core research in STEM learning because we do want to learn from
what we're investing in. The types of things--and a much longer
response is deserved--but the types of things we're learning
have to do with institutional commitment. They have to do with
hands-on learning and ensuring that every student has an
opportunity for that. They have to do with community
participation and engaging in partnerships that go beyond the
school involving parents. They have a lot to do with teacher
training. That's just absolutely essential, and having two
teachers in my own family, three if I count my spouse, that I
believe that continually upping the skills in teacher training,
especially for a new computer age, is very, very important.
So all of these, we take what we learned and we implement
new programs that make use of that learning. So some of the
questions, and I know Mr. Lipinski alluded to that we'll get to
later, have to do with programs that look on the ledger like
they've gone down in funding or have stayed the same. Actually
what we've learned from that program or others have caused us
to institute new programs to make use of that knowledge, and so
that's how NSF is progressing in utilizing what it's learning
in education.
Chairwoman Comstock. Okay. Thank you very much, and I now
yield to Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I want to start out by just
mentioning--I know that Dr. Arvizu had mentioned social
behavioral sciences and economics in the context of big data,
so I don't want to let a hearing go by without me emphasizing
the important of SBE. I'm glad that you did that, and I will
leave my question maybe for the record on that. But it's always
important to point out the importance of SBE and the critical
questions that it can help us--help us address.
Dr. Cordova, I'm interested in the Smart and Connected
Communities initiative. Across our country, so-called smart
cities are investing in technology to address challenges like
reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, and fostering
economic growth. In 2015, the White House announced a new Smart
Cities initiative to invest in federal research and technology
collaborations to help more cities pursue implementation of
internet of things and smart-cities technologies, and last
month's PCAST report on technology and the future of cities
helped to underscore the value of this research.
I understand that NSF has long supported fundamental
research that underlies Smart and Connected Communities. Can
you talk further about some of this research and about NSF's
contribution to National Smart Cities initiative?
Dr. Cordova. We are doing a lot of work, especially in
computer science but also engineering on Smart and Connected
Cities and simulation and modeling. Some of the examples that
Dr. Arvizu mentioned pertain in the area of energy efficiency.
We actually call this initiative Smart Communities because in
our view, it's larger than a city; it extends to regions, and
they're all very different. And so we--you--this is truly a
cross-disciplinary activity that will involve us all in looking
at things like transportation and communications, definitely
security, and more our risk and Resilience initiative also
applies here and is connected with Smart and Connected Cities
for how they become resilient against risk like, say, Hurricane
Sandy and so forth.
And so we are engaging the private sector in this. It's a
very popular initiative, and I think especially with the tools
that cyber--that computing offers us in doing modeling and
optimizing what we already know, we can make a lot of headway,
and then we can also identify weaknesses in the system where we
don't respond well to crises whether it's, you know, traffic
crises, police crises, and again, this is a place where social
science also comes into the picture in Smart and Connected
Communities, that we must take all the data that we are getting
and ask our social scientists how to evaluate where we can make
better inroads. And maybe Dr. Arvizu would like to----
Dr. Arvizu. Yes, if I can just add to that, I think
excellent response by Director Cordova. Obviously you mentioned
the INFEWS program, which is a--at the nexus of several of the
infrastructures that go along with energy, but energy and water
and food, these are areas where these research capabilities
actually can be actually more pronounced in terms of impact for
our communities and for our cities to capture efficiencies that
otherwise would go untapped.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. In my remaining time, I just want
to ask about the Advancing Informal STEM Education funding.
Informal STEM ed is something that I believe is very important.
It's the main source of funding for science museums and other
informal providers to innovate, develop and test new models for
informal STEM ed through all ages and all mediums. So I'm
concerned about the funding cut. Is there any particular part
of the informal STEM ed portfolio that you propose to scale
back or eliminate in fiscal year 2017?
Dr. Cordova. No, on the contrary. I too, Mr. Lipinski, are
very--am very committed as our agency to advance informal STEM
learning. Our fiscal year 2016 estimate was $62-1/2 million,
and so is our fiscal year request, so we're not proposing to
cut back at all.
Mr. Lipinski. Now, well, I guess we will see what happens
because of the issue of the mandatory----
Dr. Cordova. Right.
Mr. Lipinski. --funding which we don't really----
Dr. Cordova. You are right to note that $7-1/2 million of
the fiscal year 2017 request is on the mandatory side of the
ledger, but we view our budget as a total ensemble of $500
million that we think is necessary to make further progress in
science and engineering. In fact, it's essential. And so we
don't think of it as being stovepiped into one or the other,
discretionary or mandatory, so when we make the request, it is
with respect to $500 million request augmentation for this next
fiscal year.
Mr. Lipinski. Okay. I understand your commitment. I just
wanted to make sure that I raised that--raised that issue.
Dr. Cordova. Yes. Thank you.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I'll yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize Mr.
Moolenaar for five minutes.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Cordova, thank you for being here, and Dr. Arvizu.
Question for you, Dr. Cordova. Your budget request for NSF
requests $512 million for clean energy research and Dr.
Cordova, and my understanding is, that's about a 38 percent
increase, and I guess two questions would be, are you
encouraging collaboration between the appropriate offices
within the NSF and the DOE, and how do you make sure that
there's no duplication of funding with Department of Energy
Office of Science when it comes to these kinds of projects?
Dr. Cordova. Well, thank you for your question. In fact,
I'll be with them this evening with the Department of Energy.
We work very closely with Department of Energy, and my
colleague here, Dr. Arvizu, until very recently headed one of
the DOE laboratories, and this is his specialty is on clean
energy.
We're very pleased to be working in an interagency sense on
this very important initiative. Where NSF comes in is on the
very basic research on materials, for example, for rechargeable
batteries, on floating wind turbines would be another example,
on solar fuels, economical generation of hydrogen from water
rather than methane, and on the new combination of organic and
inorganic materials and what progress we can make with those.
But if you'll allow Dr. Arvizu to comment, because this is his
field?
Dr. Arvizu. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Cordova, and I think as Dr.
Cordova has already suggested, there's close coupling with the
Department of Energy Office of Science and even the Applied
Offices. The kind of the good news and bad news about energy
research is it's target rich. There's a lot of things that can
be done, and where I think the mission agencies, the Department
of Energy, is very much focused on applications and how you
take those essentially to the marketplace more quickly. There
is plenty of room for revolutionary work that goes on at the
fundamental level. Office of Science is focused on high-energy
physics, basic energy research which relates to biology.
The opportunity to do some really revolutionary high-risk
high-rewards sorts of outcomes really are not funded so much in
the Department of Energy, and I think it's left to our
tremendous capabilities within the university community with
other research labs to actually offer ways in which we can
really change the trajectory and move the needle on new
revolutionary outcomes that I think you could not do within the
national programs of the Department of Energy.
Mr. Moolenaar. And if I could ask you both also, how is the
private sector involved in that? Can the private sector apply
for grants in this area?
Dr. Cordova. Would you like to start?
Dr. Arvizu. So----
Dr. Cordova. We do work in parallel with the private
sector. We certainly--well, one thing we fund is SBIR grants,
okay, and a number of those Small Business Innovative Research
grants, and so some of those are focused in this area.
We--in partnership with private, we fund Engineering
Research Centers, ERCs. We have quite a number of those. And a
few of those are specifically looking at clean energy either
materials or applications of some kind, and there will be
partners from the private sector that are also funding that.
It's one of the requirements of those Engineering Research
Centers that they have industry partnerships.
Dr. Arvizu. Yes, and I think, you know, there's a wide
spectrum that goes on that relates to energy and all kinds of
forms of energy, and what we find is that the private sector
primarily likes to work very close to the application and Dr.
Cordova side. So in that respect, that's really more of the
purview of the Department of Energy where they have many
multiple partnerships requiring 50/50 cost share in most cases.
If it's more fundamental work, even for them, they require less
cost share from the private sector. Rarely does the private
sector work in some of these areas I think that the National
Science Foundation works in, although they do in fact have
great opportunity and application again, depending on the
nature of the technology. If it's software, if it's
architectures, they're more likely to do, but things that
require larger commitments for longer-term higher risk you find
that the research labs in the private sector don't nearly
address that part of the spectrum nearly as well as the Science
Foundation does.
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize Ms.
Esty for five minutes.
Ms. Esty. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking Member
Lipinski, for holding today's hearings, to Dr. Cordova and Dr.
Arvizu, thank you so much for joining us.
We've already discussed some of the issues I was going to
flag so I'm going to jump in, Dr. Cordova, with you as we've
discussed at length on STEM education. Could you talk a little
bit about the scalability elements? You referenced just a few
minutes ago how the National Science Foundation is trying to
figure--has done a lot of research on what works and what
doesn't, but clearly one of those issues is not only what is
effective but how do we scale up? Could you talk about what the
agency is doing on that issue?
Dr. Cordova. Yeah. Well, thank you, because that is--that
is one of the most important challenges that faces us,
especially in our broadening participation initiatives, and by
that I mean how do we include more women, underrepresented
minorities, the disabled in this great field that all of us at
NSF and our Board loves, and wish everybody could have the
opportunity to learn more about science and engineering and ask
themselves if I too could become a scientist.
So that is really the basis that--I mean, you just really
pinpointed what is the essential element of our INCLUDES
initiative, so when I came to the agency and I saw--2 years ago
now, celebrate my anniversary on the last day of this month, I
saw the fine programs that we're doing in broadening
participation programs like the LSAMP program for minority
scholars, like the ADVANCE program for women at the
universities, and so many more. All of them seemed very
targeted to a specific group. They seemed localized. They
didn't scale up, as you put it. And so the challenge if we're
going to really move the needle is how do we do the scaling.
There's--now, business manufacturing, it depends on it,
right? You spend a million dollars developing a widget and then
you want to pay just 10 cents for every next copy of it. All
right. Well, we're not--in the social economic challenges that
we face, we're not very good at scaling up best practices. We
don't--we don't take everything that we've learned and examine
it and say how can others utilize it, how do I communicate it,
how do I engage others in using those models and adapting them
for their particular region.
And so we've put out a call now just as of the last 2 or 3
weeks on our INCLUDES initiative which is--whose intention is
to bring more people into science and engineering, especially
those who have not been included, and the focus of this is to
fund proposals that are truly innovative in a scaling sense,
that take the best of what we've learned and translate it to a
larger environment and do some innovative experiments. So we're
going to fund a lot of things, maybe at first go 40 different
pilot programs, see what works, and then we're going to down-
select to just a handful of the ones that seem like they've got
a good goal, good metrics to get there, and that they really
can make a difference and be replicated and fund those at a
much higher amount.
So that is our intention with this. We're on it. We too
care about the scaling program challenge very much.
Ms. Esty. Well, I want to thank you for that. You and I
have discussed this at length, and I just have to note 10 days
ago, I was in my district. I've gone to a lot of coding events,
shared passion for including girls and children of color in
these initiatives, and I went to one 10 days ago in my
district, a hackathon, and it engaged young girls, and this was
3rd grade to 8th grade, in which they were paired with social
service organizations in their community for a full day, and
they learned about the homeless shelter, the animal shelter,
the food bank, and they met actually with executive directors
to understand the mission of these organizations, designed an
app in one day to promote these businesses, and it's some of
the research that MIT frankly found when they took their CS
glass and broadened it to have the objective be develop
something that's socially relevant and important, and so I
think having gone to so many of these as I know you have really
saw a tremendous difference in seeing students being asked to
engage on issues they care about and to learn about them as if
they're co-equals with organizations and people in their own
community and see themselves as being part of those practical
problem solvers, so I think we need to make sure we're pushing
to lower grade levels and encouraging those who have not been
included to say you can help address issues in your own
community.
And I think oftentimes we start too high up and only look
at the post-docs and even the undergrad levels, and if we don't
get kids in the door, by the time they're in 8th grade they
generally never get in.
So again, thank you for your work, both of you. I
appreciate it very much.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize Mr.
Westerman for five minutes.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Cordova, Dr. Arvizu, thank you for being here today. It
sounds like we just have votes.
I just wanted to follow up, Dr. Arvizu, with the comment
from the gentleman from Michigan or question in talking about
renewable energy research. Secretary Moniz was here earlier
today, and in all the discussions I've not heard any talk about
this vast resource of biomass that we have here in our country.
We had 10 million acres of forestland burn last year. If you go
through all the conversions and calculations and estimates per
acre, you come up with the equivalent on an energy basis of
about 26 billion gallons of gasoline that went up in flames on
our federal lands. That doesn't count all the other biomass
that we have. So my question is, why aren't we focusing more on
utilizing those biomass resources versus algae or corn ethanol
or other activities to research and find better ways to use
biomass in a drop-in liquid fuel.
Dr. Arvizu. That's a great question, sir, and I think I'm a
big fan of also using all of our renewable resources including
biomass, especially those that we consider waste streams, you
know, things that are kind of left over after we cultivate
either ag or other types of crops, and I think there is still a
lot of work to be done. I think one of the concerns that I
believe we have is we have kind of an unequal approach to the
way in which we fund basic research across the entire spectrum.
So I think there is room for that. Now, being a former DOE
person as opposed to a current DOE person, my own personal
opinions about that are that there is a great deal of
opportunity there to do continued research on taking
essentially carbons, oxygens and hydrogen atoms and
reconfiguring them for useful purposes such as high-density
energy fuels, which I think is very possible.
Mr. Westerman. And there was a significant increase in
biofuels research in the budget I was looking at earlier but
there was no mention of partnering with the Forest Service or
any kind of woody biomass research in there, so I would just
encourage you to please take a look at that and I think that
could help us out on multiple levels.
Dr. Cordova, quick question for you. In 2013, the President
announced the BRAIN initiative, a multiagency effort with
important, ambitious goals about bettering understanding the
brain and finding treatments for brain disorders. Last year the
NSF proposed a major ramp-up in funding for understanding brain
research but nearly flat funding this year. I know in this
Committee we passed out the READ Act, which has to do with
learning disorders, dyslexia, which the research that's there
shows that about 90 percent of learning disorders are
associated with dyslexia, and there's been a lot of great
research done at Yale on that, but where are we on the brain
research and on the funding for the READ Act? I think it was 2-
1/2 million mandated that have to be spent on dyslexia
research.
Dr. Cordova. Right. Okay. And so on the READ Act, as you
know, that is enacted in fiscal year 2017 but we're getting a
head start on it. Well, first of all, we have been funding
research on disabilities including dyslexia for some time, but
on the specific Act, we're getting a head start by issuing a
``dear colleague'' letter this year to get the community
stimulated to start thinking about writing proposals that we
can fund when the Act is--comes into force in fiscal year 2017.
So we're committed to doing that, and as I said, it's been part
of the fabric of NSF is to support research on disability for
some time.
On the brain, NSF has doubled its investments from 2012 to
2016 from $71 million to $147 million, and I think you'd say
that is quite a growth, and so we're taking this year, being a
year budget constraints, to take a pause, assess whathave we
learned from the brain research that we've been investing in
and where are the new directions where NSF uniquely among all
the agencies can then move forward in subsequent years. So
we're very, very much committed to the brain, understanding the
brain, and this again is an all-directorate effort. We have the
social and behavioral sciences engaged, obviously the
biological sciences, but also the physicists and engineers are
engaged because what we need is better imaging techniques,
improved technology.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize Ms.
Bonamici. We're about 10 minutes out from a vote so we're----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will try
to be brief.
Welcome back to the Committee. First I want to make a
comment, and applaud you for your work on STEM research and
education. As a member of the Education Committee as well as
the Science Committee, it's something that I talk about and
work on on a regular basis.
You mentioned, Dr. Cordova, hands-on learning. That is
something that the STEM to STEAM initiative has been involved
with, with integrating arts and design into STEM learning.
There are model STEAM schools now across the county, and I
happen to have two of them in the district I'm honored to
represent, and talk about engaged learners, and it is also a
benefit because students who are involved in arts and crafts
are also going to be more creative and innovative thinkers as
they move through their education, and we're seeing more
engaged students, so there's a bipartisan STEAM caucus, and I
invite colleagues to join us on that. We've seen a lot of
progress and hopefully we'll see a more innovative workforce as
well.
Dr. Cordova and Dr. Arvizu--is that correct? Last week I
met with a constituent who works at Intel. She leads a team in
social and behavioral product research, and she talked about
how that research is so critical to Intel's ability to develop
unique products for different markets and cultural specificity.
So I wondered if you could discuss some examples of social and
behavioral sciences leading to major breakthroughs, where has
it made a difference, and how is SBE collaborating with other
fields of science and engineering.
And then I also wanted to ask you about the Geosciences
Directorate. As someone who represents a district in Oregon
where we have, you know, natural hazards like tsunami,
earthquakes, landslides, flooding, that's critical research
involved in many areas including but not limited to climate
change. So Social and Behavioral Sciences and also provide us
with a few of the budget highlights for the Geosciences,
please.
Dr. Cordova. Okay. A lot. Okay. First of all, since you
started with STEAM, I'll just say that we're committed to any
improvement in STEM learning including its incorporation of the
arts, and in our informal STEM program, we do fund projects
like EarSketch would be a very important one for disabled
children to use the arts to learn more about STEM education.
So on SBE, we have lots and lots of examples, and I'll be
happy to submit them for the record of how important and
relevant that they are. They are--the social and behavioral
sciences are a part of every cross-disciplinary initiative that
we have, and that alone shows their importance to everything we
do because technological change comes along with a lot of
questions that we have about how to best utilize that
technology and incorporate it.
One of my favorite recent examples has to do with the
measurement and data linkage in integration that SBE research
on the linkage of diverse sources of information is very
important to the Department of Defense, which relies on us to
help fund. It's the fusion of both hard and soft forms of data.
And so they want to have the ability to fuse intelligence data
with social media, mass media, and behavioral survey data
because they believe it's critical to forming a more
comprehensive situational awareness, and we've all seen
examples of this worldwide, and that is really a social and
behavioral application.
Another, of course, is anything to do with cybersecurity.
We all know that at least half, if not three-quarters of the
problem, is the social and behavioral response to making us
more secure.
And the third thing that you asked about has to do with the
Geosciences. We have there a number of initiatives that are all
embraced under the rubric of risk and resilience, and that is
how we respond, and again, including the social sciences, how
we respond to hurricanes and tornados and earthquakes and
landslides and any kind of natural or human-made disasters that
we want to be able to identify risk better. We want to do
modeling and simulation of how to respond to them, and we
believe that lives can be--we can demonstrate that lives can be
saved that way.
And then we've made a couple of references, as has Dr.
Arvizu, to our INFEWS initiative, our Innovation at the Nexus
of Food, Water, and Energy, and this is very much a place where
the Geosciences has a big role to play because it's all about
the land and its uses. We had a biomass question here as far as
energy is concerned and water, whether it's underground or
above-ground, and the production of food, and that applies----
Ms. Bonamici. I see my time has expired so----
Dr. Cordova. --so much. Yeah.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
Dr. Cordova. There's lots of examples we'll submit for the
record.
Chairwoman Comstock. No, and my apologies because we are
under five minutes now for our vote, so if Mr. Tonko could
submit his questions for the record?
Mr. Tonko. I will, Chair. I just want to thank our two
guests, Dr. Cordova and Dr. Arvizu, for the great advocacy that
you have provided for climate change and the geosciences. There
are some that would suggest if we ignore it, it'll just go
away, but that doesn't happen, so I appreciate the advocacy,
and we'll submit some of the questions that I have for the
record, and thank you.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and the record will remain
open for two weeks for additional written comments and written
questions from Members. We did check, and they wouldn't hold
our vote, so my apology.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:58 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
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