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▶ 0:12:41all right thank you very much the committee will now come to order without objection the chair is authorized to declare recesses of the committee at any time welcome to today's hearing entitled the state of us Science and Technology ensuring us Global Leadership I recog Iz myself for 5 minutes for an opening statement welcome everyone to the house science space and Technology committee first hearing of the 119th
▶ 0:13:11Congress I want to thank our Witnesses for being here and taking the time to come and share your expertise with us today's hearing presents an opportunity for this committee to assess the current condition of the United States's entire Science and Technology Enterprise and discuss how we can continue to shape and enhance its future America has positioned itself as the global leader in science and technology due to the rich ecosystem that we
▶ 0:13:41have created here and while the federal government is the primary jurisdiction of this committee we must recognize that it is only one aspect of our larger S&T Enterprise the federal government Academia philanthropic and private sectors each have a unique and equally important role to play over the past 20 years we have seen a shift in how the US research Enterprise operates the share of research
▶ 0:14:11funded by private and philanthropic entities is rising playing a crucial role in funding exploratory work according to the most recent National Center for Science and Engineering statistics data the United States spent nearly $800 billion on research and development in 2021 of that private sector businesses supported over 600 billion such Investments Drive advancements in critical Technologies like AI
▶ 0:14:42Quantum and semiconductors ensuring that we are and remain at the Leading Edge however these Investments by industry are not only in applied research and development the business sector now funds 36% of America's basic research which is very close to the 40% share that is funded by the federal government these growing Investments by industry suggest that us firms see opportunities to capitalize on their research and development efforts
▶ 0:15:12thanks to our free market economy it is critical that we do not allow the government to hinder this progress I believe that over the rest of this decade we're going to see an incredible growth in our Science and Technology sectors and the last thing that Congress should be doing is slowing this down we should always be looking to protect promote and support such Investments through tax reform reducing bureaucratic red tape and safeguarding patents and
▶ 0:15:42intellectual property rights the growing role of industry and private philanthropy in R&D does not mean that the federal government does not have a role to play here federally funded research is the foundation on which major technological innovations are built including smartphones GPS and the internet it is critical for maintaining a healthy Baseline over Generations by supporting fundamental basic research infrastructure and Facilities
▶ 0:16:13creating new research disciplines training generations of scientists and Engineers the government also has a critical role in supporting high-risk High reward initiatives with no obvious business cases NASA and the eventual creation of the commercial space industry are very great examples America's economic strength National Security and quality of life all fundamentally depend on ongoing scientific progress and the strength
▶ 0:16:43of our S&T Enterprise while the United States continues to lead in The Innovation race we Face Fierce Global competition the Chinese Communist Party poses an especially formidable and growing strategic chall all we know the CCP is aggressively pursuing plans to dominate the next generation of Technology including stealing our research and our Innovations seeding leadership to the CCP will
▶ 0:17:13place our national security at grave risk limit opportunities for us Industries to compete in the global economy and pave the way for critical Technologies like AI Quantum and the advanced semiconductors to be tainted with CCP values but let's be clear we cannot beat China by becoming China today the United States is at an inflection point and it is critical for Congress to make strategic Investments and reforms
▶ 0:17:44to bolster our S&T Enterprise and enhance American competitiveness while leveraging the free market we must build systems uh that promote coordination and cooperation across the entire entire us S&T Enterprise and put America First by unleashing our Innovation and our Ingenuity America stands at a precipice and this committee has the opportunity to make a once in a-lifetime
▶ 0:18:14impact on our nation's future thank you and I yield back and now I'd like to recognize the ranking member the gentle woman from California for her opening statement well thank you very much chairman Babin and I want to welcome all our new members on both sides of the aisle uh to this our first hearing and welcome a very distinguished panel of witnesses It's My Hope and intent that this committee continue to be a place for constructive debate and collaboration that represents the best of what this institution can achieve
▶ 0:18:44while the science committee didn't uh enact enough legislation last Congress this committee did pass many good bipartisan bills uh and uh we worked hard to get them over the finish line and I stand ready to work with my new chairman to continue in that effort and that work having said that I can't ignore the reality outside these four uh walls in our committee room we're holding a hearing about us leadership in science and technology with a widely respected
▶ 0:19:14panel of witnesses while the new Administration is actively and with unprecedented speed and ferocity apparently seeking to tear down and undermine some of the very scientific foundations upon which our leadership has been so pain stenly built uh I have ultimate and total respect for uh chairman Babin who sat on this committee for many years and who I am certain appreciates the importance of the work I do and we do but I am concerned about reporting that
▶ 0:19:44science programs may be targeted as part of reconciliation plans being put together I just don't know how anyone reconciles a rhetoric about competing with China with pulling the rug out from under our own research Enterprise um for many decades there has been bipartisan uh consensus that the federal role in basic research is essential uh that we cannot pull back and that that basic research funding needs to
▶ 0:20:15continue if we are to take the lead in science in the world but in the past two weeks there's been chaos in the Science and Technology community research across the United States was paused because the administration supposedly wanted to weed out unidentified Dei literally until a court stopped it researchers Across America wondered if they could pay their graduate students and postdocs now while communist China is making unprecedented investments in science research and
▶ 0:20:45talent uh our government uh is not supporting our scientists in in the way we should we're going to have to as a United Congress we're going to have to decide whether uh it's worth standing with Elon musk uh if if it means surrendering to China soon enough the American people are going to expect actual results uh from this Congress and this Administration results that would make their lives better give them hope that their children's lives will be better but
▶ 0:21:15our children's lives will be drastically worse if we lose the AI R race with China our future economy will be much worse if we lose the Clean Energy race with China and our National Security will be decidedly worse if we lose the space race with China my fear is that the chaos the new Administration is sewing will be enough to leave our Science and Technology Enterprise in Ruins with Chinese Communist leaders in Beijing popping champagne cours to the accomplished serious
▶ 0:21:46panel of witnesses sitting before us you have dedicated your careers in service to the US Science and Technology Enterprise and I want to thank you for that thank you for being here today and thank you for your testimony and your will willingness to come before us and answer our questions I do not blame you if it all feels a little bit surreal we have have serious policy questions for you and I know you will give thoughtful answers there are many new members of our committee on both sides of the aisle who may not yet but will come to
▶ 0:22:16understand the critical importance of federal investments in science and technology because of hearings like this one and experts like yourselves they don't yet they will come to understand that we need to tap into science scientific talents from all walks of life across our great nation and from all across the world if we are to remain global leaders in science and Innovation if they don't yet they will come to understand that our Premier Federal Laboratories at NIS doe and NASA are decades old
▶ 0:22:46and crumbling and we can't possibly expect to lead by cutting these agencies further for decades we have proudly called this committee the committee of the future and I hope we continue to live up to that moniker I stand to be uh ready as a partner in that endeavor with you Mr chairman and I yield back yes ma'am thank you very much and now let me introduce our distinguished uh Witnesses our first witness today is The Honorable Heather Wilson uh Dr Wilson became the
▶ 0:23:17president of the University of Texas at El Paso in my state of Texas uh in 2019 after serving as a secretary of the United States Air Force she previously served as a member of the US House of representatives from New Mexico from 1998 to 2009 she is also currently a member of the national science board and uh the newly formed Texas space commission uh our next witness is The Honorable Walter Copan uh Dr Copan is the vice president for
▶ 0:23:47research and Technology transfer at the Colorado School of mindes he previously served as the under Secretary of Commerce for standards and technology and the 16th director of the National Institute of Standards and technology and next we have Dr sud Peri Dr Peri is the 19th Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the advancement of Science and the executive publisher of the science family of journals immediately prior to joining uh tripas
▶ 0:24:17perique was senior vice president and managing director at di Global and prior to DIA Peri was a vice president at and our Final witness is Mr Sam Hammond uh Mr Hammond is the chief Economist at the foundation for American innovation uh he previously served as the Director of social policy for the ninin center and an economist for the government of Canada uh with
▶ 0:24:47that I now recognize Dr Wilson for five minutes to present her testimony Dr Wilson thank you Mr chairman with your permission I'd like to submit my full statement for the record and just summarize some key points so AR first since the end of World War II America has dominated in science and engineering and we no longer are we no longer are Western democracies are losing the technology competition China now leads in
▶ 0:25:1737 of 44 critical Technologies they have surpassed Us in Talent production research Publications patents and Technology intensive manufacturing we need to meet this challenge second the pace of technological change will continue to accelerate it's kind of hard to believe that it'll continue to accelerate beyond what it already is but it
▶ 0:25:48will artificial intelligence is going to accelerate hypothesis formulation experimental design and data analysis it's hard to believe that it was only two years ago that we started playing with chat GPT and at first it was just a game for all of us but my guess is that everyone in this room has probably used some form of AI tool today and certainly this week some of us multiple times so what's to be done in the face of this
▶ 0:26:18well developing a national strategy is important but here's some key elements I think that this committee and this Congress needs to think about none none of our 18 intelligence entities monitor for scientific or technical surprise we haven't had to we have been so dominant since the end of the second world war that we didn't have to worry about surprise and scanning The Horizon that
▶ 0:26:48is a critical Gap and every leader in the military and the intelligence Community acknowledges it but none of them have it as their job that's something that the Congress has to initiate a solution for second basic research is still the pacemaker of progress that's what drives our security our health our economy and federal support for basic and early stage applied research is
▶ 0:27:19absolutely vital third one of the things I think federal agencies and the government needs to do is to figure out how to collaborate more closely with the states the top the top funer of research in cancer in America is the National Institutes of Health number two is the state of Texas that's put $6 billion dollar into cancer research since 2007 and Mr chairman as you mentioned two years ago they created the
▶ 0:27:49Texas space commission and funded it supporting research and infrastructure to keep America dominant in space in partnership with Federal entities we're going back to the moon and then to Mars but it doesn't just have to be the federal government that does it and fourth we need to inspire the Generation we need to plant seeds broadly and reach the missing Millions who don't know yet
▶ 0:28:19that science and engineering is a heck of a lot of fun I look forward to answering your thank you very very much and now I'd like to recognize Dr Copan for five minutes to present his testimony thank you so much chairman Babin ranking member lran members of the committee and distinguished participants it's a privilege to testify on the state of us Science and Technology critically important to our nation's global economic competitiveness
▶ 0:28:50and our national security it's my honor to lead research and Technology transfer at Colorado School of Minds a top tier us research University rated in the top three engineering programs in America I recently served our nation as director of the National Institute of Standards and technology and prior with two of the US Department of energy National Labs my leadership experience spans public and private sectors as executive entrepreneur and investor two decades ago the United States was the Undisputed Global leader in science and technology
▶ 0:29:20and in driving Innovation for economic value today however by many internationally recognized measures us uh leadership position in the majority of critical technology areas has been overtaken by China the US still holds a clear lead in seven of 64 top technology categories whereas China is currently leading in all the rest China now leads the numbers of patents highly cited research Publications and respected journals while also seeking to dominate global technology
▶ 0:29:50standards at the same time the US has allowed strength of our intellectual property protections to decline we are in a period where crisis presents America with great opportunity the US must take a new strategic approach to the future of research and S&T advancement that coordinates across government agencies we must leverage collaboration and Investments with the private sector States bolster education at all levels and engage with our national R&D intellectual property standards and Innovation Enterprise
▶ 0:30:21we have the chance to drive great synergies in federal R&D investment through a national S&T and Innovation strategy investment in public sector R&D is an essential part of our Global competitiveness but its value and high rates of investment return are not always fully appreciated substantial industrial productivity gains and the majority of our Tech startups originate from public R&D funding preserving the Integrity of the B doel act for us Innovation is essential and we must now Implement much needed modernization of the Stevenson
▶ 0:30:51widler act to deliver increased Innovation outcomes from federal research flexible and efficient collaborations between universities government industry and science philanthropy are key to America's success in S&T the future us Workforce must have the skills necessary for the STEM related careers that drive The Innovation economy a prepared Workforce is essential for rebuilding and reshoring our Advanced manufacturing base for all Industries in the future economy and to produce and utilize
▶ 0:31:22necessary critical materials we have work to do America's K through2 educational out outomes have fallen behind other nations attracting and retaining talented people from other nations are also essential to our Innovation economy further International scientific collaboration with like-minded Nations enable the acceleration of discoveries and build diplomacy supporting America's position abroad over the past two decades the bureaucracy and administrative burdens
▶ 0:31:52associated with America's publicly funded R&D have also skyrocketed this bureaucracy has increased costs and reduced the productivity of us research we must continually increase efficiencies in R&D build inter agency coordination and strengthen our intellectual property system our technology standards leadership and our Global Partnerships we must further modernize legislation and policies to remove barriers and incentivize
▶ 0:32:22Innovation for America to continue to lead the world thanks to this committee for your important work toward securing the science technology and Innovation leadership for US economic and National Security I look forward to answering questions you may have thank you very much uh Dr copen and now I'd like to recognize Dr perique for five minutes to present his testimony thank you Mr chairman uh thank you to you and to representative flof and to the members of the committee for the invitation today
▶ 0:32:52uh I also have a written testimony I'd like to include in the record and summarize now so ordered thank you um in thinking about the invitation today I thought about the fact that we are living just an extraordinary times and I hope that we all recognize that when we look around us the pace of innovation has been spoken about already is extraordinary we just in this last week we heard about the fact they're building blocks for life in material from an asteroid we learned about the idea that a new pain medication has been approved that is
▶ 0:33:23in a whole different biological pathway than the ones before it uh these are extraordinary times we also see that engineering is taking place 50 people coming together in a private company building a plane that can go faster than the speed of sound you know Chuck jger is celebrating uh today and that is that is amazing and that happens in a place like this country in a place where we bring together our federal Investments our academic researchers our engineers and those who are willing to take risks in a way that really doesn't happen anywhere else
▶ 0:33:53and we know that that opportunity is still before us you know sometimes people say to me gosh it's all slow and are you out of your minds it's increasing it's faster and the opportunity is huge there was a time when Michael Faraday came before a similar group of people 150 years ago and he's the he's the guy who really helped us understand electrons and electronics and he was asked this is all great these electrons y'all are working with but uh but but what good is it and his answer is this apocryphal answer which I love which is just said I don't know but
▶ 0:34:23someday you're going to tax it someday you're going to tax it and I think that you know we have entire fields of endeavor out there that we know uh we don't know exactly what they're going to lead to but we know someday we're going to tax it and the thing that's changed over time is that other countries have figured this out too have figured this out too and so three things are happening at the same time the first is that this pace of change is accelerating so rapidly and the tools and strategies that got us here
▶ 0:34:53are insufficient to get us to the next level uh transformational techn techologies are reshaping our way of life you've heard about that second we Face a bunch of threats that are really important health food and water security environmental resilience energy production utilization storage uh these are huge big societal challenges that we've got to work together on as an Enterprise and you described it so well Dr bin as the ecosystem that is that is here in America and then third more than ever we are competing with other nations and particularly
▶ 0:35:24China and you heard those statistics it's worth me saying it again I'll repeat it they rival Us in Talent infrastructure and capital investment uh can put our economic and National Security at risk they train more scientists and Engineers than we do uh they file for more international patents than we do they publish just as many highly cided scientific papers as we do and are leading in many critical areas of research and development I say that again for repetition sake because it is worth knowing in these rooms in these rooms in this building because
▶ 0:35:54this is the place where we can make a difference in that and so frustratingly we are not at our full potential right now as a scientific Enterprise um and there are recommendations that you heard from Dr Wilson and Dr Copan that I am fully behind and I agree with completely um and so I will move to uh saying that there are also things that we shouldn't do we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot we shouldn't do things that slow us down and so we' got to recognize that this Enterprise as a whole from the federal investment to the workforce to
▶ 0:36:24the industry investment to tax and Regulatory policy it's all part of it it's what differentiates us from other nations but when I look at when I look at what are the things that slow us down one thing that slows us down is when we are hurting our own Enterprise with self-inflicted wounds and so I want to recognize the fact that Global competition and we're taking it seriously we can do that without demonizing people or International collaboration in the process our colleagues of Chinese Indian and other immigrant backgrounds make up a substantial percentage of the American Science and Technology
▶ 0:36:54Workforce and they are colleagues and friends and deserving a and we got to ensure that our drive to compete doesn't alter our Humanity it doesn't mean we have to be stupid or irresponsible but it means we have to preserve our Humanity now when we make America less welcoming to science who are scientists who are immigrants or those who've been here for Generations we only hurt our own competitiveness um and so when we close our close ourselves off to International collaboration we lose the visibility to advances made around the world and we slow progress for everybody else and we also have the danger of being
▶ 0:37:24leap fraud and then lastly the announcement of an Abrupt spending freeze on Science and Technology uh that broke that happened last week it really broke trust it broke trust and it hurt the S&T Enterprise it's the kind of action that even if it's brief can have a lasting negative impact you know many of the scientists that I talk to particularly those early in their careers uh they live paycheck to paycheck and I was most sadden to hear that some of those young scientists are the ones that are thinking should I be doing this now I think that um that transitions can
▶ 0:37:54be challenging but let's just make sure that we're communicating through about it we're saying what the priorities of the country are and that we're going to continue to invest in the way that I've heard today uh so I'll end there but thank you so much for the support of this committee your work on this committee actually is more important now than it's ever been thank you Amen to that thank you we've had some excellent opening statements from our Witnesses so far and then your your testimony reminds me of another story I heard when Benjamin Franklin was uh shown a the flight of a hot air balloon
▶ 0:38:24and uh an accompanying uh person sitting next to to Benjamin Franklin said what on Earth good could a hot air balloon do for Humanity and he turned to him in return and and uh Dr Franklin said what good is a baby and little knowing that just uh about 125 years later we'd be heading to the moon so anyway great testimony thank you so much now I'd like to recognize Mr Hammond for five minutes to present
▶ 0:38:54his testimony thank you chairman Babin ranking member Lo lofer members of the committee and and for the opportunity to testify today um my name is Samuel Hammond I am the chief Economist from the foundation for American innovation we're a group of technologists that focus on promoting technology talent and ideas that benefit America and promote a more abundant future I'm here to emphasize uh remarks have already been made about the importance of American Science and federal science funding uh to US National Security and competitiveness especially Visa China but it's actually for that reason that it should be disturbing to see evidence
▶ 0:39:25that science funding and the productivity of our sence funding has lost the bank for its Buck um some dismiss dismiss this as a natural decline that we prior Generations picked all the low hanging fruit others myself included suspect this simply excuses systemic failures on the part of our Premier Research institutions while federal spending on science and R&D is a smaller share of GDP than in the past and absolute and inflation adjusted terms has never been higher in the last 40 years I've seen relative station in both scientific productivity and the broader economy a 2023
▶ 0:39:55article nature concluded that the number of disruptive breakthroughs has plummeted across every major scientific field it's hard to isolate a single cause for the Slowdown but we have some hints in 1980 that the National Institutes for health funded twice as many researchers under the age of 40 as those over 50 well whereas today it funds five times as many over the age of 50 principal investigators now spend over 40% of their time on administrative compliance and a risk-averse peerreview culture punishes heterodoxy often rewarding institutions with the best Grant offices rather than the best ideas meanwhile in recent years the influx
▶ 0:40:25of diversity equity and inclusion mandate mandates into the NSF and NIH has politicized research demoralized faculty and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars it's no wonder that many of today's most transformative breakthroughs now come from privately funded nonprofits and research organizations these are organizations that give scientists multi-year support without constant grant writing and bureaucracy in 2024 for example The Arc Institute in palto just three years after its founding pioneered a revolutionary new technique for programmable RNA and precision Gene editing thanks in part to a model of No Strings Attached research funding
▶ 0:40:56that experience the federal government could reap large returns by allocating resources away from cumbersome academic bureaucracies and toward similar organizations where sometimes known as focused research organizations zooming out um the broader Factor behind our scientific uh slowdown and progress is that we just over regulate the real economy most practical Innovation emerges from a learning by doing process yet entire branches of Technology from nuclear energy to civil supersonic Aviation have been prematurely cut off by de facto regulatory prohibitions China meanwhile
▶ 0:41:27uh achieve scale rapidly generating feedback loops that accelerate technological Improvement as we've seen in batteries and solar panels and other areas so dismantling such barriers at home is Paramount if we want to revitalize our industrial base and our might meanwhile AI is already revolutionizing the scientific Enterprise with the potential for self-driving labs labs where AI agents control and run experiments uh in parallel uh could speed up scientific discovery at uh unprecedented rate the federal government can support this trans
▶ 0:41:57transition at minimal cost by unlocking large public data sets for instance the department of Energy's Trove of Material Science data to produce large Foundation models to train such AIS but still life-saving breakthroughs will stall the hit regulatory roadblock such as the fda's cumbersome clinical trial process so across the board I believe that maximizing the full upside from Ai and Science in general will likely require Congress to radically rethink and reconfigure me many of her Legacy institutions not just reform them on the margin an AI more broadly
▶ 0:42:27a America's Advantage is in in our hardware and uh in what I sometimes call Open Source diplomacy the rise of deepsea con China shows that there's less of a technical barrier separating us and China than we might have hoped our Edge instead lies at the ecosystem level with access to the most advanced chips SEC secure Supply CH Supply chains and heavy investment in power infrastructure large AI data data centers will soon need on-site energy generation on the order of gigawatts a requirement that will collide with permitting utility rules and environmental laws if not
▶ 0:42:57uh if left uned meanwhile open source AI models are becoming the default for critical infrastructure and Global researchers but have the potential to contain to contain undetectable back doors the only Sure Fire way to certify that a Model A model's Integrity is to audit its code and training data that's why we have the US AI safety Institute and with the rise of deep seek and this new competition from China I believe it should be retool to do precisely that to provide a voluntary seal seal of approval for developers to know that America's open source models are not just
▶ 0:43:27the best but also secure enclosing a forward-thinking less bureaucratic and rigorously rigorously merit-based approach to Federal science policy is essential if we want to preserve our technological leadership by deregulating the real economy and safeg safeguarding our AI Hardware we can build on America's tradition of pursuing pushing the scientific Frontier and lead the world into a new golden age of growth growth and Discovery thank you and I look forward to your questions thank you very um now as we move on on to questions
▶ 0:43:58the chair recognizes himself for five um I was very uh pleased about the president Trump's recent announcement of Stargate which promises up to 500 billion in private sector Investments for artificial intelligence infrastructure uh this announcement represents a significant step in the right direction unleashing the talent resources of our Private Industry right here at home and so my question would be and I would I really
▶ 0:44:28emphasize very briefly each one of you uh your answer what should the federal government be doing to encourage further Investments like these how can Congress or the administration reduce red tape strategically prioritizing engagements and prevent Federal funding from crowding out private sector Investments very briefly because I have several other questions thank you Dr Wilson Mr shman I don't think that there's any chance that the federal funding will crowd out to the level of billion of of
▶ 0:44:58investment in AI I do think that there may be the biggest challenge will be energy um and on a regulatory from a regulatory point of view there may be some Interstate energy grid issues that the Congress may be able to help with um but the most important thing you'll do is drive Discovery and develop the talent to be able to use the AI That's Coming yes ma'am thank you Dr Copan the uh opportunity before us is to Leverage all the resources that we have available
▶ 0:45:28as a nation um utilizing private sector public sector philanthropic uh uh availability of uh of resources driving the future of our our Workforce um and being uh goal oriented uh to really accomplish what the nation needs uh with respect to uh advancing the Frontiers and utilizing the tools uh that we have available to us uh while preparing the Next thank you Dr Peri
▶ 0:45:59u in addition to the things we just heard I'd say that um it's often hard to create these things separately every time independently every time a template for how you do governance when you're going to have federal dollars and State dollars and private dollars and philanthropic dollars is really important because otherwise we're Reinventing it every time in every state and by the way every state in the Union is trying to think of ways to pull pull together uh the industry and the philanthropy thank you Hammond uh so as taret illustrates private sector is
▶ 0:46:29is stepping up to the challenge but if we want to encourage more of this investment we can use things like our federal lands uh the Biden Administration in the final days final months of of its Administration issued an executive order to that effect but one of the things that needs to change is to remove the Clean Air clean energy requirements of that act of that executive order and I believe that the Trump Administration will do that more aggressively um more aggressively the uh defense production act uh should be considered as a tool to expedite and compress timelines for for critical components like High Transformers thank you okay next
▶ 0:46:59question uh for Dr Wilson as you know there have been discussions about moving the NASA headquarters out of Washington DC Metro Area I'd like to get your perspective given your experience with making facility and infrastructure decisions for the US Air Force uh can you discuss what criteria should be taken into consideration When selecting a new site for NASA headquarters and if there are any specific locations you think would be a prime candidate thank you Mr chairman you're right we did uh the Air
▶ 0:47:29Force used to set criteria for selection for basing um and thinking about NASA you know it's hard not to go back to uh some of the some of the after actions on Colombia and uh and Challenger about strengthening the mission focus and accountability and tying closely research and operations to higher level decisions I don't think it all has to be in one place but I do think there's absolutely a strong argument that says it doesn't all have to be in
▶ 0:48:00Washington what other criteria cost of living should be a big one and that always is in defense department basing decisions for your people availability of talent absolutely vital if you look at those kinds of criteria it seems to me that there are two locations in America that stand out very clearly one obviously is the cape and the Florida Space Coast the other very clearly is Houston Texas that has the PE that has the people the talent the cost of living um Artemis is
▶ 0:48:30is heavily supported in Houston to strengthen the mission focus and the accountability to then go back to the moon and be on to Mars so so I think the final thing that might be a criteria now uh going forward is State support and that's something that's very very clear from the state of Texas as well great good to hear okay real quickly Dr Wilson again in an interview with the El Paso Times in August of last year you stated that you had never had an offic office of diversity equity and
▶ 0:49:00inclusion however your University produces an overwhelming number of stem graduat compared with other R1 Hispanic serving institutions with Dei offices could you explain how utep's approach differs from other institutions and why your policy has been so effective yes sir UTP never created a Dei office uh but we have the results people who advocate for Dei say they want
▶ 0:49:31um there's a there's a better way and the University of Texas at El Paso has been doing it for over 30 years we started out with recognizing that Talent is widely distributed but opportunity is not and using the support of the University of Texas Regents as well as Title 5 and The Higher Education Act systematically studying ourselves and our students to identify those things that will help individual
▶ 0:50:01students to succeed and then doing those things we meet each student where they are and we help them to become a better version of themselves and that means looking not just at academic but also social Financial cultural matters our University is 96% Hispanic we are 66% pelan eligible 80 rather 96% % minority 84% Hispanic we have one of the lowest debt loads of
▶ 0:50:31of any University in America even though 29% of my students come from families making less than $20,000 a year if you give students access to an excellent higher education and show them where the doors are you can Inspire them to achieve at very very high levels and that's why UTP is something of a unicorn but I I have to say I think if more universities were like UTEP higher education would have a better reputation in America
▶ 0:51:02thank you so very much for that and I'm out of time so I apologize and I now recognize ranking member lofer well thank you very much Mr chairman and thanks to each of the witnesses for your thoughtful statements and sharing your perspective you know uh I think you're right Mr chairman that it's an ecosystem here that we need to recognize and support all elements of um you know for myself I think about the three of the main uh science Enterprises
▶ 0:51:32that I think work together is um Quantum Quantum uh fusion and AI uh if we if we succeed on Fusion it'll deal with the energy issues posed by AI but the last um Grant out of the Department of energy on Fusion was using Ai and obviously qu if we make great strides there will will have a huge impact so the three are important and
▶ 0:52:02they're interrelated and they are key to our future one of the things that as we sit here and we're getting reports we don't know all of whether they're accurate but we're not only getting news reports but reports from individuals in agencies that there is apparently a plan uh in the National Science Foundation to lay off between one quarter or half of its staff in the next two months we also know that Mr musk
▶ 0:52:32uh and his team is in uh in the Noah offices today and Reporting and we don't know if it's accurate or not that there may be an action similar to what occurred with us Aid um and that eliminating the uh Weather Service I'm wondering from each of you whether if these reports Pro to be accurate what impact would that have on our uh success as a science uh
▶ 0:53:03leading country uh what impact would that have for our competitors in China let me begin thank you so much the um delays that and the uncertainty created for the scientific Enterprise in the United States uh will certainly cause harm and uh we've seen uh evidence of that already as colleagues on this uh on on this stand have have shared the rest of the
▶ 0:53:33world is not standing still while the United States uh has has such delays and so maintaining momentum in the United States maintaining confidence and uh progress uh toward the future technologies that matter is absolutely dror you we're I agree with with Dr Copan we're in a global r race we a race for Science and Technology leadership and it has profound implications those things you mentioned Quantum AI
▶ 0:54:03um there's a race every day people are spending their nights in their offices in their Laboratories working in those spaces and anytime you think in terms of huge reductions and force at the NSF or nist or Noah or elsewhere uh especially if they turn out to be random in nature without prioritizing which skills and expertise are needed um you end up in that and if you take that metaphor you're breaking your own legs in the middle of the race now I hope that those stories aren't true and uh and I I don't know how to how to judge it but what we do need is communication from the
▶ 0:54:33top uh of those agencies and from the top of the administration to say these are things we prioritize and we need you to do the stuff in the lab do the work because we need to stay in that race let let me just um Mr hammer do you have a disagreement with that yeah yes absolutely uh so as I talked about in my opening statement I you know scientific productivity has declined quite dramatically and I think is are scientific institutions are in need of a deeper disruption um on the Dei case specifically president Trump has issued an executive
▶ 0:55:03order uh repealing and and making illegal those uh Dei grants and between 2020 and 2024 NSF and NH funding going to Dei initiatives increased from less than 1% to over 27% this is not science let if I if I may I was just thinking about you know we really don't have the kind of arguments Mr hmer that I think in this committee that you addressed cuz I think about it was our committee's lead the very light touch of regulations on
▶ 0:55:33Fusion that we are very important that we don't have a fision regime for Fusion development and it was our committee that led on that we had a unanimous vote on Next Generation nuclear um it was the AI task force staffed really by the science committee staff that approached a light touch to to AI not a prescriptive effort and um Mr overaly was the chair of that committee and we had I think unanimous
▶ 0:56:04recommendations so it's not as if we're embracing um bureaucracy or uh regulation that is prescriptive and brain dead on the other hand that doing that is not it's not going to replace funding for basic research uh and that's one of the concerns that I think have that if we have I mean I talked to a neuroscientist um just Monday who uh is
▶ 0:56:34doing research on Alzheimer's and uh I mean she is topped here in the United States all of the panels have been yanked back and there's no opportunity to discuss hopefully that will stop soon but it's already had an impact on basic research and I think certainly uh when the scientists weren't paid uh last week that had a huge impact on young scientists who are already working at a
▶ 0:57:04uh you know Elementary School teachers are earning more than you know the posts in some cases so causing them to question their career choices I see that um uh my time has expired Mr chairman you've been very generous and I will therefore for yield back yes ma'am thank you very much and uh now I'd like to recognize a gentleman from Indiana Mr be thank you Mr chairman and ranking member and I appreciate all the witnesses being here
▶ 0:57:35you know uh your testimony and your expertise is really beneficial for helping us make decisions that are wise decisions as we use taxpayer dollars but my first question deals uh for Dr Wilson and Dr Copan and Dr Peri uh this committee is very familiar with ccp's efforts to steal R research and development and so does the academic Community fully appreciate this risk and what un what are universities
▶ 0:58:05doing to protect our nation's R&D Mr chairman there's probably no president of your University in the country who's more sensitive to this issue than me having been the the secretary of the Air Force before I returned to higher education um there are we comply with federal laws of course and there are substantial regulations there but also with Texas law with respect to research integrity and protection but I would also say this that domestically Counter Intelligence with respect to
▶ 0:58:35universities is largely a responsibility in the federal government of the local FBI office and there are only probably one or two offices in the FBI in very large cities that really have competence and expertise in this area law enforcement is not the same as intelligence analysis and I think Congress and I was here at the time made some major reorganizations post 911 and gave a new mission to the FBI with respect to Counter Intelligence and I don't think it's worked
▶ 0:59:06and I think it's time to relook at that I believe that having systems as well as culture the Partnerships that are necessary to assure the interests of the United States are are secured um is absolutely essential at in the academic uh Enterprise as it is across Federal Science and Technology um having uh leadership uh that uh that focuses on on these matters that looks at aspects also of
▶ 0:59:36cyber security and cyber crime together uh with uh ensuring that intellectual properties are appropriately secured and that information that can be seen as sensitive and misused by other powers uh are are kept under appropriate control it's about helping people to do the right thing and in many cases across the uh Enterprise um education together with systems and ensuring uh that we avoid undue for an influence of any kind uh is an
▶ 1:00:06essential set of processes um I think we've got to be as open as possible and as closed as is absolutely necessary uh it is important and you've brought up a really important point that I think many in the university community have started to realize it hasn't gotten everywhere and so we have to make sure that that message is is out in the in the scientific work force that said we also got to keep our humanity and recognize that we have many many scientists in the S&T community in industry and an Academia that are uh that are either
▶ 1:00:36foreign born or are of ancestry from Nations that uh that we know can be a challenge for us and we got to be able to do both things at the same time and I think we're capable of it thank you I know that that is a concern when you have uh foreign students I would say don't get me wrong we need those and we want those but the exchange of information has to be monitored and so I appreciate your answers on that regard so Mr Hammond I'm going to go to you
▶ 1:01:06next if you will uh given the increased investments in R&D by the industry by our us industry they're also a target for the CCP so how is the Private Industry addressing the threat and how can the federal government be helpful in that perhaps the area where this is most important is in the area of artificial intelligence um artificial intelligence is the Manhattan Project of our era but it's being produced not in Los Alamos
▶ 1:01:37but it uh startup companies based in Silicon Valley with very different cultures and particularly very different security cultures uh today uh lab security at one of these AI companies may be closing the blinds um and we also you know we don't benefit from the fact that uh given that we have such an open society and in the United States it's very possible for people to uh cozy up to go to the cafeteria to e drop and so we need to take lab security especially in AI much more seriously at the same time
▶ 1:02:07going to the academic question uh we have tools in our toolkit for for screening uh um technology partnership with with with China when I looked at the authors on the recent deep seek paper I was surprised by the number that had interned or worked at Microsoft research at Nvidia uh us companies and so we need to take that much more seriously not not be naive thank you and my time's run out so I yield back thank you very much appreciate it Dr be
▶ 1:02:38uh next I'd like to recognize gentle woman from Oregon Miss banamichi uh thank you uh chairman Barrett and ranking member lrin and thank you to the witnesses I cannot sit in this hearing this morning and pretend that everything is normal because it's not this hearing should provide an opportunity for us to applaud us innov ation identify opportunities for future Investments to lower Consumer Energy costs improve Community resilience against extreme weather events and support an AI ready Workforce but instead we need to talk
▶ 1:03:08about how the first weeks of the Trump Administration have severely disrupted Federal research and what the consequences of that disruption are the Trump administration's Reckless executive orders om's unlawful memo and Elon Musk have thrown our federal research Enterprise into chaos they've threatened America's scientific leadership especially threatened federal employees but also research across researchers across the country who benefit from federal grants they disrupted critical research in
▶ 1:03:38my home state of Oregon and across the country and by freezing federal grants and dismantling scientific Integrity protections gutting climate initiatives this Administration has jeopardized some groundbreaking research in my home state for example on oceanic climate change on Advanced semiconductor design on the next generation of Clean Energy Technologies and more and I want to emphasize that the administration's actions have had a chilling effect through the research Community threatening Decades of work and billions
▶ 1:04:08of dollars in federal scientific Investments at a time when countries like China are surging ahead in AI in semiconductors and climate science why is this Administration sabotaging our own scientists I note that the president has rescinded the order uh creating the AI safety Institute and now the head of that Institute is leaving and you know where you can read those headlines in the Asian press what message does that send in 1988 that was
▶ 1:04:38a year my now 36-year-old son was born a NASA scientist testified in Congress about the importance of addressing climate change it's pathetic and it's dangerous that this Administration has its head in the sand or maybe more accurately its fingers in the oil wells it's a great disservice to our country and to the planet and I want to ask each of the witnesses does freezing NSF research funds strengthen Global Leadership in science Dr Wilson
▶ 1:05:09thank you Mr chairman the let me just say a couple of things first this is just a yesterday yero question does freezing NSF research funds strengthen us Global leadersh ship and science I'm I'm not sure I can answer that with it the the NSF lifted that for us at least a couple of days ago so they're reviewing their they're reviewing their I'm I have to reclaim time because I have some more questions Dr Dr Copan does freezing NSF research fund strengthen us Global Leadership in science
▶ 1:05:39no it does not and uh it uh having a a delay in our our scientific uh progress certainly enables others to take advantage absolutely Dr Peri yes or no question does freezing NSF research funds strengthen us Global Leadership in science no it does not uncertainty in any form is a challenge correct Mr Hammond to freezing NSF research funds strengthen us Global Leadership in science I think that's a leading question someone earlier said just a yes or no answer
▶ 1:06:09please it was earlier said that freezing this reduced trust in science but I think the lack of trust goes both ways and and a temporary I'm going to my time um Dr Peri will eliminating diversity initiatives that expand the scientific Workforce help our ability to complete glob complete compete globally we've got a pull Talent from all over this country in the way that Dr Wilson described uh and I appreciated that description and and I think that is that makes so much sense the opportunity we have to make sure we have the opportunity to go as far as people's god-given
▶ 1:06:40talent and drive can take them and that means finding them where they are U and we need programs that do that i I appreciate that and and also um uh Dr Peri will we sending executive orders on climate research bolster America's role in combating climate change um I don't know the details of those executive orders but what I can say is that climate change research and Research into environmental resilience are critically important uh for obvious reasons because we see the uh we see the implications of uh of
▶ 1:07:10of changes in weather and I prefer that the US have leadership in that area Dr Wilson I know you're a member of the of the national science board so how much congressionally authorized and appropriated research funding has been affected by the administration's efforts um and if not resolved soon how much Federal research funding could be lost by this pause well none have none has been affected so far um there's a national science board meeting next week and I expect that we will get an update at that time thank you and I and I do hope Dr Wilson that
▶ 1:07:40if researchers have to resubmit applications for some reason that they get the technical assistance that they need and I'm almost out of time but as I yield back I'd like to remind my colleagues at researchers in Oregon and across the country they're making life-saving discoveries there's nothing w or Dei about predicting the next devastating earthquake or tsunami about detecting a wildfire before it spreads or about protecting ocean Health to support Coastal and fishing economies and I yield back thank you Mr chairman thank you very much now I'd like to
▶ 1:08:10recognize gentleman from uh California Mr obaly well thank you Mr chairman thank you to our Witnesses this been another great hearing here in SST uh Dr Copan I'd like to start with you I think you've got a fascinating background as the former director of nist uh we heard Mr Hammond in his testimony talk about the need for the AI safety Institute in uh in protecting this uh proliferation of potentially dangerous open source models and the introduction of uh of intentional flaws into those models
▶ 1:08:41uh can you talk about this this body made an effort last year to codify the safety Institute uh that was a bill that I sponsored the house companion we're going to try again this year can you talk about why that's so important thank you so much uh Congressman it's it's uh it's an important uh tool for America to be able to validate the performance of Technologies and having uh an AI safety Institute um having the ability to have independent verification of of product performance
▶ 1:09:12uh is part of uh creating a foundation of trust and and the broader utilization of the tools that are so important to the nation um and I think that's one of the important uh resources that in Institute like nist provides to America is to uh provide scientifically sound uh uh measurement science uh validated approaches uh that uh that enable industry that support intelligent creation of uh consensus standards
▶ 1:09:42for the industry right I couldn't agree more and uh I mean as you know I was proud to lead the AI task force in the last Congress and one of the things that we uh was the one of the key findings that we identified in our report is the uh the benefits of embracing a sectoral model of regulation in the United States which is very different than what's being done in other parts of the world uh but part of sectorial Regulation is giving each sectoral regulator a toolbox of tools that they can
▶ 1:10:12use in their efforts and uh what I I I think we need to do a better job of educating people on Congress is that empowering agencies like the safety Institute to come out with these testing and evaluation method methodologies uh those are non-compulsory they're are voluntary standards and our Regulators can use them or not use them as appropriate so uh it's not expanding the bureaucracy it's not expanding the the uh regulatory state to do that and that's why I think it's so important to to uh to follow through
▶ 1:10:42on that and I'll be reintroducing legislation to do that this year but thank you for the testimony no thank you so much and uh and the understanding of the role that voluntary consensus technology standards play uh for Global Commerce and all also for the acceptance and Broad utilization of Technologies is absolutely Central Dr Wilson enjoyed our conversation here hadn't met you before um uh you you talked in your testimony about the need to keep AI uh American innovation Ai and uh in
▶ 1:11:13in a globally competitive landscape uh and I'm interested in your perspective as the head of an academic institution about how we enable institutions like yours to continue to do Cutting Edge Frontier level research in AI because I have a fear that we are moving more towards a model where Cutting Edge AI Innovation is done in private companies and not in academic settings and when you do that you lose all of the advantages of doing research in Academia
▶ 1:11:43you lose uh transparency and publication and peerreview uh and the ability to leverage research that's done other places and literally stand on the shoulders of giants as so many Innovations have done here in the United States so uh Dr Wilson how can we enable that research to continue to be done in academic settings as well as in settings s very good question Mr chairman a couple of things access to data and the and compute um at at UTP as one example we have 1,400
▶ 1:12:14computer science Majors we now offer a bachelor's and a master's in Ai and we are creating an AI Institute funding universities to have ai institutes um both funded by the federal government but also in partnership with industry can allow both the development of talent um and uh and success long term in the ways that you described right I I very much agree uh as you know the national AI research resource sare we call it is something that has been a pilot program
▶ 1:12:44to try and address the exact problems that uh you've raised I was very disappointed that we were unable to get the uh formal authorization for that across the Finish Line last year that would have been a a really great testimony to our colleague congresswoman ESU uh as she had retired from Congress we're going to try that again this year uh and I'm hopeful that uh that we can do that uh and you know just to uh we have some responsibilities as member of Congress to enable the people at this table to take those steps and we need to follow through on those uh I
▶ 1:13:14see amount of time Mr Hammond I was going to ask you about uh export controls on AI chips but I'll submit that for the record thank you Mr chairman I'll you back yes sir thank you very much and now let's see I need to call on the gentoman from North Carolina Miss Ross well thank you very much for holding this hearing chairman bab and I think it's an important time to be holding it and thank you to ranking member Lofgren for highlighting on the events of the last two weeks that really do I believe put our scientific Enterprise at risk um and of
▶ 1:13:45course thank you to all the panelists for joining us today uh Dr Peri it is a pleasure to see you again and it was an honor to host you in my district Last Summer for a stem Workforce Development Roundtable and a tour of NC States College college of textiles and barbecue yes which um of course North Carolina has excellent barbecue we won't fight Texas over that um I represent part of the Research Triangle uh along with congresswoman
▶ 1:14:15fushi who represents the rest of it and it's a major Center for Science and Technology and home to some of the world's top research universities and institutions and as I said today's hearing comes at a critical moment the actions of the Trump Administration over the last two weeks have greatly disrupted our Science and Technology Enterprise to the point where I've had professors and researchers stop me on the street
▶ 1:14:45in my district we were home all last week we heard Panic from the universities when we went to an event that was about a new children's hospital and all the university folks were there worried about grants worried about their research any freezing of federal funding for research grants freezing of federal hiring and some of the layoffs that we've need we've seen and freezing vital Communications at
▶ 1:15:15agencies cause great concern for the researchers in my state and disrupt the important work that they do the impact and potential impacts for North Carolina and our country cannot be understated our state and local economies depend on our research Enterprise and federal support for the worldclass and lifesaving research that takes place in my district the researchers
▶ 1:15:46and outstanding workers students and others who conduct this life saving and lifechanging research help keep the us as a global leader in science and technology and as we have heard from Dr Wilson we are losing ground investment in American public and private collaboration to advance the American innovation Enterprise is a top priority of mine
▶ 1:16:16and I'm very interested in how we can move that forward in a very very divided Congress I'm going to move on to an issue that hasn't been raised yet because of course I'm interested in how we fund NSF how we're funding NIH how we're going to fund doe and we're going to take those things up but one of the other things I'm concerned about with budgets coming up and the cuts that we're looking at
▶ 1:16:47is how we will take care of our labs and our crumbling infrastructure I represent to HBCU if you go into the labs that they have where you know there are students who are so eager to contribute to the scientific Enterprise They simply cannot afford the infrastructure to be able to give these Bright Young People the opportunities that they need and so um why don't we start
▶ 1:17:17with Dr Peri because he came in um to North Carolina and and talked to some of our folks who are working on this Pipeline and then I'll open it up to the others yeah thank you for the question and uh being from North Carolina vinegar barbecue is my is is Mye preference um when I think about how we can ensure that we have the infrastructure I first of all have to compare it to my trip to China last year where I saw investments in Laboratories at universities that are First Rate and they are
▶ 1:17:47deep they are deep right it's not just one laboratory that has the latest Mass Spec or the latest uh the latest uh piece of equipment but rather throughout large universities and in first and second tier universities and we haven't made that investment in in too long and so we have to make sure that as we go through what the budgeting exercise I know Congress has to do uh we have to prioritize and science if we are going to have the benefits of the acral of things that come from science uh we have to make those Investments yes Dr copen I see
▶ 1:18:17you're nodding your head indeed uh the investment in the United States Science and Technology Enterprise and our facilities for Leading Edge research uh are an absolute priority for the nation and we've seen uh the crumbling of some of our key infrastructure um and in areas that are so important for us Global Leadership uh that uh we are out of capacity and in many cases us scientists are going abroad to actually carry out the research
▶ 1:18:48that ultimately should be carried out a Leading Edge facilities in this nation uh thank you I see my time's expired my yeld back thank you very much and now I'd like to recognize gentleman from Florida Mr Franklin thank you Mr chairman and thank you to all of our our Witnesses for being with us today I have a number of questions for all of you but limited time so I would like to dial in initially on a couple uh for Dr Copan if you would please uh last year I and a number of members of the committee here served on the AI task force we produced our report at the end of the year
▶ 1:19:19uh over the course of eight months or so we had stakeholders from all sorts of different constituencies give us their ideas and inputs on how we should chart a course forward uh in almost every single one of those nist came up everyone cited the need for nest to be more heavily involved and uh in one of your your previous hats as a director of nist I know you have a deep understanding the agency's role in establishing those standards in your opinion uh what specific resources authorities or policy directives does nist require from Congress
▶ 1:19:49to effectively fulfill this role and ensure continued us leadership in AI thank you so much Congressman it's uh it's a real pleasure and and thank you for your service in uh uh in that regard looking to the future of artificial intelligence for our nation uh the role that n plays is uh is absolutely Central uh there are certainly new authorities and flexibilities that the agency can uh can benefit from uh those include some of the upgrades that have been uh recommended through the uh changes
▶ 1:20:19in the Stevenson widler act to create greater uh opportunities for public private partnership greater uh opportunity for industry engagement um and and more flexible uh collaboration uh approaches uh in particular as we look at uh the public private Partnerships necessary for us standards leadership in particular uh in artificial intelligence um I believe also that uh having uh the sustained investment by the nation in our leadership capacity for
▶ 1:20:49artificial intelligence bringing together the capabilities of of NIS and being able to double down as a country to ensure that we can retain the leadership position in these key areas that we currently enjoy but we know that the competition is not standing still very good all right so now switching Switching gears to your current hat at uh Colorado School of Mines I know you've got extensive expertise in in Mineral and uh energy extraction we all know we see our dependence our over dependence
▶ 1:21:19on China for a number of critical minerals uh for metals and things like that some of the ideas the things are being slapped around there on potential tariffs on Goods coming into the country that we get from China uh we know there are a lot of these things we've got to have uh we need to figure out how to do these things safely successfully economically and obviously we've got to protect the environment in the course of that um China clearly doesn't have the same concern uh for human rights for protection of the environment or any of those things uh so you know they're willing to overlook a lot of those environmental impacts
▶ 1:21:50are there emerging Technologies or best practices that we could use that might more environmentally be responsible for mining domestically even some of these things we mine them domestically and then we ship them offshore uh you know to refine and then bring them back into the country it it seems hypocritical to me we're concerned about the environment as long you as long as it happens you know somewhere else we don't care but I'd love to get your thoughts on that thank you so much for that question the United States is uh is so dependent on China for materials uh essential uh to our economy
▶ 1:22:20including these types of devices that we rely upon for uh for day-to-day Communications for advanced compute uh the future of quantum uh Computing and uh and networking um are also dependent on these critical materials to be uh provided um uh the US has historically underinvested in innovation in in the mining uh and uh and extractive industries that uh that relate to these types of materials we need to rebuild our future Workforce I know that
▶ 1:22:50this committee um is uh is focused on the future of innovation science and Technology bringing together the federal agencies who have touch points around critical materials is going to be absolutely essential that we coordinate between the department of energy the department of interior us Geological Survey that has such an important uh role on the Colorado School of Mines campus the Department of Defense and the ability to use the defense production act uh all of these coordination opportunities especially in the absence of a
▶ 1:23:20US Bureau of Minds uh is going to be essential uh to our nation and I really am pleased that this committee is considering these issues uh of the future of critical materials and the future of Workforce um including the uh the mining schools act that uh that has recently been been brought forward in both houses right Mr chairman and Congressman if I could add uh the University of Texas at El Paso with the support of the board of regions is restarting mining engineering they're only as a disciplined and field of
▶ 1:23:50study there are only 14 mining schools left in the United States States and soon there will be 15 and Our intention is to increase the number of mining Engineers for America by 30% from one University in El Paso Texas well wonderful and I look forward to following up with with all of you on that Mr chairman I you back uh thank you now I'd like to call on the representative from Morgan uh Miss lenus thank you Mr chair and thank you to our Witnesses and the ranking member and to you for holding today's hearing and setting the stage for us I'm thrilled
▶ 1:24:21to be back on this committee um for another term we've had a really strong bipartisan commitment to support American leadership in The Innovation economy we've had incredible opportunities ahead in science and technology to bolster our Global competitiveness a lot of what you've all have talked about and create those new economic opportunities for all Americans but I have to be honest the Trump administration's recent actions have swn confusion and alarm throughout our nation Science and Tech Enterprise these disruptions to Federal research investment
▶ 1:24:51not only threaten our future economic success but Direct directly harm Americans from all regions of the United States for example they've disrupted the work to place Wildfire detection cameras in remote locations around the Pacific Northwest this directly impedes our ability to better understand identify and respond to wildfires across the Pacific Northwest that's a lose lose proposition both for research and keeping people safe but there are longer term threats as well as to our leadership on emerging Technologies
▶ 1:25:21and significant Workforce implications in recent years we've emphasized a Consortium model to push the envelope on critical emerging Technologies everything from semiconductors to Quantum to AI Oregon's colleges and universities are Partners on nsf's AI research institutes collaborating with institutions as farflung as Kansas State the University of Florida and Georgia Tech and one such Institute includes a partnership with your institution Dr Wilson at UTP so Dr Wilson how do broad Partnerships across
▶ 1:25:51regions and institution types strengthen our leadership in key emerging Technologies like Ai and then following up what unique challenges do these large collaborations face when funding for all or part of the efforts is thrown into question thank you for the question first of all I think that you know there's always a a a shift at a transition sometimes there are moments of pause but with respect to contracts and grants that are already given where a university may have been required
▶ 1:26:22to include a subp um that maybe the new Administration doesn't like the the point is to move forward um and to to not disrupt the science that is going on um with respect to large consortiums no University can do everything and and we have strengths that we build on the key is to to forge vicious Partnerships if you will with universities that have um non-overlapping contiguities and so bringing universities
▶ 1:26:52and researchers together and Crea creating those synergies identifying where they are as a tremendous value and it's a strength not only in the United States but in universities in the west I was struck in the science and engineering indicators this last year if you look at the there's a map of uh interrelationships on AI research it far beyond the United States and the strength of the West is what we should be thinking about not just strength in the United States and and I also think that um the global South is another place where
▶ 1:27:22we should reach out to with respect to scientific research thank you in my district one of our community colleges is a member of an AI Research Institute working on agricultural applications their role specifically focuses on Workforce Development and broadening participation and this is a term that's caused a lot of confusion and anxiety in the wake of President Trump's recent executive orders on diversity I worry that the Trump's attacks on diversity will ultimately take career opportunities away from students in my district many of whom come from rural
▶ 1:27:52areas that are disadvantaged so I can't see how this would help our nation compete on the Technologies of the future Dr Peri you spoke of the importance of strengthening our domestic stem Workforce if we limit opportunities for children from a wide range of backgrounds to participate in these emerging Fields how will that affect our Global competitiveness we're in a race with uh with demographic behemoths 1.4 billion people we're 340 is million people we have to draw on the talents of every part of this country
▶ 1:28:23uh whether it's Southeast Texas or the south side of Chicago or anywhere else in this nation and when we when we do that when we pull that creativity one of the reasons why the Partnerships between universities is so powerful is that there's a there are cultural differences between UT UTP and other other universities and when we bring that together we have incredible creativity that's created uh by by bringing folks together so we want to make sure that we're meeting folks where we are I want every student in America to hear what Dr Wilson said about the need for it's it is your Birthright in this country to to
▶ 1:28:53go as as far as your as your brain power and your drive can take you in the Sciences because we need you Congressman if I could just add most first generation college students start out at Community College a deep partnership between community colleges and exceptional research universities is the ticket to a dream and the pathway to success we need to make sure those Pathways stay open um this uh this question of the future of uh of America's Workforce needs
▶ 1:29:23to be entirely inclusive needs to be looking at uh leveraging all the talent of America but also bringing the brightest and best to this uh nation that are really willing to drive the future of innovation thank you my time has expired I yield back thank you very much and now uh the representative from Ohio Mr Miller thank you Mr chairman very much and thank you to our Witnesses
▶ 1:29:54for their time and testimony today sorry I'm here in the corner uh new for me as well I'm honored to be serving in my second term on the space science and technology committee United by our shared mission to secure and strengthen us Global Leadership in cuttingedge technology today we are here to assess the current state of the United States Science and Technology Enterprise and explore strategies for maintaining our Competitive Edge in the global Innovation race research and investment in new cuttingedge technologies serve as an indust
▶ 1:30:24pensable pillar of progress both here in the United States and across across the globe which I believe is without question in 22 the United States led the world in research and development efforts investing nearly 886 billion which accounts for more than a third of the world's total spending in R&D however to maintain our leadership we must confront the rising influence of our adversaries particularly China over the last two decades the Chinese Communist party is known as the CCP has made aggressive strides
▶ 1:30:54in R&D including a staggering 14% increase from 2020 to 2021 over the CCP backed National policies like made in China 2025 thousand talents plan and the 14th 5-year plan underscore why the United States must double down on investments in science and technology our leadership depends on sustained Innovation and a commitment to pioneering advancements right here at home Dr
▶ 1:31:24copen in your stated remarks you mentioned that the United States remains a leader in seven of the 64 technology categories while China leads in the other 57 what are these key technology sectors and in your view how can Congress in the administration work together to close this Gap thank you so much congressman and thank you for your service on this uh committee um the US is leading in uh areas that relate to Quantum Technologies Quantum compute uh atomic
▶ 1:31:54clocks and so precision timing Technologies um in the U in the Life Science in the biotech uh areas uh for vaccines for genetic engineering um in nuclear medicine and and related fields um in space Technologies including small satellites um and also in fields of artificial intelligence including natural language processing um China's lead uh is in areas that are also essential to the global economy
▶ 1:32:24um there we're looking at uh at uh prowess and advanced manufacturing and and and in robotics um they have uh dramatically expanded their capabilities um in areas that relate to the critical materials question that uh that we discussed earlier so for the United States now to look strategically at how do we double down on our strengths and and build on those maintain a position of leadership but also let's look at those fields that are important to the US economy um the needs
▶ 1:32:54for uh America's Workforce to be fully brought into play and then participate in the Innovation economy through advanced manufacturing um and through important um uh new initiatives such as the um uh initiative at at NIS that brings together um industry and uh and digital twin Technologies uh to look at the future of the semiconductor industry thank you for that answer nothing would make me happier than seeing par across the board with
▶ 1:33:25uh technology and Innovation and Al also Workforce Development uh which we are down in across the board within this country so nothing would make me happier and I believe everyone within this country for stability purposes uh to have parody across the board so thank you this question is for any of the witnesses uh it is my view that public private Partnerships are essential to facilitating groundbreaking discoveries in science and technology as we have already seen uh several private sector companies work well with the government uh in what way can Congress address any
▶ 1:33:55potential roadblocks that we may face uh to better facilitate additional discoveries in science and technology while working with some of these public and private Partnerships uh let me begin I think that uh uh truly these are essential there are new models that are necessary and I think having repeatable approaches for public private partnership with flexible uh tools and Contracting vehicles um is going to be also essential I'm really proud in in Colorado that we have uh a Quantum Hub
▶ 1:34:25that uh that is looking at leveraging the largest Quantum economy in the United States um and looking to take that leadership position forward so bringing together the academic uh uh leadership bringing together the private sector and leveraging uh one another's talents as well as funding uh to uh to actually accelerate this process is going to be essential thank you I am out of time thank you all for your testimony today thank you chairman I back thank you and now next
▶ 1:34:55representative fushi of uh North Carolina thank you Mr chairman ranking member for holding this Committee hearing today and thank you also to our Witnesses for your testimonies and for appearing before us now this afternoon so last fall Republicans from the Senate Commerce science and transportation committee released a staff report asserting that the NSF allocates approximately one one quarter of its recent
▶ 1:35:25annual budget to so-called left-wing ideological Crusades they arrived at this number by applying broad search a broad search of approximately 200 terms to nsf's database of abstracts so let me share some of those words with you disability women underrepresented diversity bias minority barrier
▶ 1:35:55Hispanic this is a complete ignorance of Science of course words like bias and systemic can show up across disciplines that have nothing to do with diversity equity and inclusion in my opinion this is a demonization of all research be it social and Behavioral Sciences or biology and medicine that has anything to do with people who aren't white able-- bided men it appears that the goal
▶ 1:36:26here is to turn back the clock back to the 1950s including putting Americans with Disabilities in institutions to languish let's not forget that many stem fields are still only about 20% women and even lower percentage of minorities making this whole attack on diversity equity and inclusion and attack on our ability to have the stem work for for we need to compete globally
▶ 1:36:56it's bad enough that Congress is wasting taxpayer money with this stalinistic report now we understand that NSF leadership whether on their own or at the direction of someone in the white house has instructed its own staff to search its entire database of 40,000 Awards using the exact same words from this report's list in order to weed out diversity equity and inclusion I had great respect for
▶ 1:37:26NSF leadership this has got to stop the Integrity of the agency the Integrity of its Merit review process is sustaining tremendous damage and the damage to the US scientific Enterprise will be irreversible so Dr Peri surely you are hearing concerns about NSF Ripple across the country um do you want to add any of your own thoughts here thank you thank you congresswoman fushi
▶ 1:37:57um the National Science Foundation was created in 1950 by Congress and it was created with the idea that we are going to invest in science in the way that we did during the war during the time of peace and that we're going to make basic science breakthroughs that are going to they're going to drive us forward and that that that simple little vision has a profound implication of building modern society today and when I look at the description of the National Science Foundation in that report that you that you referenced
▶ 1:38:27um it doesn't jive with reality for me uh there's those numbers are not correct in terms of those Investments uh more importantly more importantly the work of the National Science Foundation and the leadership that's there who was chosen by President Trump in his first term um has been uh such that it is driving forward public private Partnerships uh it is looking for uh identifying the missing millions of uh of students across this country who should be in the sciences and it's been uh working
▶ 1:38:57very hard to ensure that we are making breakthroughs in those important areas so I just think that there's a disconnect between uh what's written in that report and uh and what the National Science Foundation is for and what it's doing today thank you Dr Wilson would you care to add yes thank you um I I I've read the report as well and I identified some of the same things that you did just because somebody you know my institution is a Hispanic serving institution under Title 5 of The Higher Education Act that appears in probably
▶ 1:39:28every Grant that's submitted which means that even if it is a piece of research on graphing particles that it will show up as uh uh in that report um so I I question the methodology of the report and I completely understand staff resources are limited on the hill I I I get that but I wouldn't say that that that report was particularly dispositive and if we're going to do word searches to identify to eliminate large numbers that you don't need to look at and then look at
▶ 1:39:58the others okay fine but let's go forward not try to renegotiate grants and contracts that have that where we've already got students hired we've already got phds doing the work and where this was probably something required and added on um by the NSF so let's let's move forward not backwards thank you Mr chairman and I ask for unanimous consent to enter into into the record an article this week from nature entitled exclusive how NSF
▶ 1:40:30scoring research grants for violations of Trump's orders and from The Washington Post entitled here are the words putting science in the cross hairs of Trump's orders so ordered and now uh representative Rouser of North Carolina yes sir thank you uh Mr chairman and first let me say it's a great honor privilege to have the opportunity to serve on uh this committee I appreciate that opportunity very much and um had been very interested
▶ 1:41:00in the uh testimony that's been provided today and the answers questions and answers um Mr Hammond uh you said something that uh uh struck me and I'd like for you to elaborate on it to paraphrase it was something to the effect of uh uh in China the regulatory barriers or non-barriers are such that uh they can bring something to Market uh fairly quickly whereas here uh we have U um you know a number of different regulatory barriers can you uh expound on that
▶ 1:41:30a little bit uh so that the average person back home you know understands what you're referring to there yeah absolutely thank you for that question um now traditionally we've made this sharp distinction between basic research and applied research and and my view is that the the distinction is not as clearcut as it first seems um across technology categories there's a lot of learning by doing that happens by trying to manufacture technology at scale so the fact that America has leading robotics companies leading drone companies leading batteries Technologies um it put we're at a disadvantage
▶ 1:42:00if we're not producing millions of units of those Technologies what we have we have drone companies but we can't produce the number of drones that China does and when they produce that volume they learn how to make costs go down how to improve quality and so that you know if we want to accelerate science we have to accelerate real investment in the real economy and I'll give AI as an example um just as we announced Stargate China last week announced a 1 trillion W $140 billion investment in AI infrastructure a state sponsored initiative that compute
▶ 1:42:30will largely come from Nvidia H20 and B20 chips um and foreign foreign Cloud providers and so it's now imperative that we cut off access to those those chips which are designed to get around existing export controls um because right now our lead is in in hardware and to to your questions Point uh China is adding hundreds of gigawatts of energy to their to their grid every year where we're actually going backwards yeah and if if they catch up on AI they'll leap progress on energy yeah well you know in China if they want to build a canal they just go and
▶ 1:43:00build a canal they're not worried about uh you know all the issues that we're concerned about here in this country and and and certainly that gives them a uh competitive advantage in in that area we have to find ways to overcome uh so let me transition to K Decay through 12 still education um yeah I grew up in North Carolina incredible UNCC system Community College system uh a lot of thought was put into that back in the 40s and the ' 50s and we have really uh benefited
▶ 1:43:31tremendously over the years Research Triangle Park uh obviously is a product of all that uh a lot of folks moving into North Carolina doing all kinds of research um but stem what what is the real problem there why why do why do we not have the advancements there why do we not have the numbers that we need there is that a k through 12 curriculum issue uh what what's different today versus 30 years ago or 40 years
▶ 1:44:02ago uh I think in so many ways having a national culture that values stem and really encourages the pathways of uh of uh every American everyone who is interested uh to pursue uh their their dreams and and to see the Poss possibilities for the future uh we spoke a little bit earlier on about the role that the community ecologist system uh has together with with higher education
▶ 1:44:32uh but if if that pathway is not really valued and if if that uh is not reinforced within the K through2 system uh then America's future Workforce uh remains uninspired um and so I think having that combination of of Pathways for all uh the inspiration the the the uh leadership opportunity the financial opportunities as well for people to uh to first of all have a dream and then be able to go for it uh is going to be essential yeah
▶ 1:45:03yes either go I think there may be something different as well and the world has changed know you said you mentioned the year 1940 so it would have been just on the on the cusp of Europe was in flames and and uh and we hadn't hadn't reached um the United States was not not yet in the war but but and my grandfather flew in the first world war with a high school degree and airplanes were pretty rickety Craft um and his technological
▶ 1:45:33in advancement was to synchronize the machine gun with the propeller Arc um my father enlisted right after the the second world war and he was a a mechanic on the hottest jet at the time the f84 thunderjet when I started the United States Air Force acad me man had already walked on the moon my grandfather was born before the right brothers and lived to see a man walk on the moon
▶ 1:46:04it's not just it it's that the world has changed 24% of the jobs in America today require some kind of stem talent that wasn't the case in 1903 or 1940 yeah that reminds me me my grandfather buil airplanes in World War II I want to talk to you after sir my time is expired thank you Mr chairman I yield back yes sir thank you very
▶ 1:46:34much uh now representative Sykes from o great state of Ohio thank you uh chairman Babin and ranking member for this hearing I appreciate the conversation about the right brothers because it is a perfect time to remind everyone that Ohio is First in Flight uh since all my North Carolina folks are gone no one is going to argue me with me about that uh to our Witnesses thank you so much for being here uh today it's it's great to be on this committee and engaging in such uh Dynamic conversations and really important conversations is why uh I chose
▶ 1:47:04to come back here uh and looking forward to being the ranking member on the investigations and oversight as we are uh making sure that we're spending the money from the chips and science act appropriately and it is especially important for me as I have a tech Hub in my community Ohio's 13th congressional district I was the recipient of the akan sustainable polymers Tech hub to receive $51 million to put together new sustainable polymers if folks don't know what polymers are think everything that you touch or Plastics um but most recently uh the
▶ 1:47:35Eda the economic development Administration awarded $3 million federal grants uh for their good jobs challenged with the greater akran chamber and and thinking about States and communities like mine uh districts who have working class families who have literally built our country from the bottom bottom up and for whom our investment in the next generation of research and Innovation will help create Pathways to new Innovative good paying and often union jobs I'm de deeply concerned about the millions of dollars that are on the line that
▶ 1:48:05are now Frozen or in flux in chaos of what is going to happen and the efforts from the Trump Administration to Halt the distribution of federal gr grant funding could and has already had devastating impact on huge Investments coming into Northeast Ohio uh last week with the announcement of the freeze it wrecked Havoc all across the country Ohio's 13th District was no different I received a very frenzied call from the greater arran chamber asking about their $51 million and whether or not we'll be
▶ 1:48:35able to rebuild sustainable polymers in our community and uh so Mr Copan I want to ask you about this uncertainty and funding you know we have these really exciting Innovative programs but we don't know what we're going to do I mean what how is this challenging our ability to be innovative in this country and competitive with global uh Partners thank you so much for that uh uh for that question and as a former fellow Ohio and I really appreciate your comments about
▶ 1:49:05uh about First in Flight uh the um uh opportunities that we have for these major public private Partnerships that have the potential uh of driving uh the the future of research and innovation in this country is absolutely essential um we are in this unfortunate period of uh of uncertainty um I believe that uh that having clear Communications about uh about the future so plans can be
▶ 1:49:35uh appropriately promulgated uh is going to be essential uh but it's important also for these teams that have worked so hard and and have built um coalitions that that will be lasting coalitions for the country um also need to be nurtured um and so we know that we will get through this time of uncertainty um I believe that one of the important things that has come out of the national science foundation's uh efforts around engines uh these uh these major Eda
▶ 1:50:06Hub uh uh programs the hydrogen hubs that we've seen around the country um are really the wave of the future it's going to be important for us to be able to to create scale uh in this nation and to innovate its scale um and uh and to bring people from all parts of society together that they can see themselves as part of uh The polymer's Hub that they can see themselves as part of the quantum Hub and these other opportunities Nationwide it's going to take
▶ 1:50:36leadership um but it's going to take communication from the to thank you and and it it your comments reminded me of the fact that in the district last week I was also a part of uh the science and business Innovation Summit it was held at the at Walsh University Dr Collins uh is is convening uh entities and organizations from National to state to local uh folks so that they can also uh get grant funding at a state Innovation Grant so that they can pull together very some something similar to a tech Hub on on
▶ 1:51:06our state scale and in that meeting it was really encouraging to see so many partners engaged and excited and talking about our Workforce and what we're going to do for the future honing it in in our uh educational institutions um but Mr Peri I I do want to talk to you about you know how what advice would you ask me to give them they asked me for my advice and willingly did but as someone who's participating in advancing science what advice would you give a startup entity like this as they move on oh it's a it's a great question and it's one that's
▶ 1:51:36being formulated all over the country this is this is what I find exciting is no matter where I go I see these uh these Partnerships happening at the state and local level one of the things I'd look for is a template so as uh as they're developing this don't let it be that they've had to reinvent the wheel uh what happens in akan can work in Cleveland can work in Columbus uh so let's see if we can create templates for governance that allow us to mix dollars from the federal government the state government philanthropy industry uh that is incredibly powerful it's a strength of our country that no other country has
▶ 1:52:07uh and we should rely on those local leaders to figure out those templates thank you Mr chair yield back okay now I'd like to call on representative harrian of North Carolina thank you Mr chairman and thank you to our Witnesses for your testimony today I found it very enlightening and um I'd just like to share one of the reasons that I wanted to join this particular committee is because I care about American dominance I want us to win as a country and so much of what this committee
▶ 1:52:37has under its jurisdiction is dual use it drives what will be our future market economy and it also drives the future of defense and I also sit on armed services and one of the things I'm greatly concerned about from the armed services perspective is our defense industrial base where we have become very very good at creating the high cost problems to our enemies low cost Solutions we are losing the economics of our conflicts and by extension over the last 30 years we have lost our
▶ 1:53:07conflicts and arguably our ability to deter conflict moving forward and Dr Wilson I was incredibly disturbed by your testimony where you said we are behind in 37 of 44 critical technologies that we losing the technology battle chairman Babin talked about how our government our people and our private sector are collectively investing over $800 billion dollar a year in research and development and your
▶ 1:53:37words and in the words of everyone else too we are falling behind we are losing the battle to win research and development in this country and the problem that I see like when we lose the economics of our Wars we then lose our Wars if we we lose the economics of our research and development we lose the future market economy that's everything to us how do we change this Paradigm and make sure that these incredibly High Investments that the American people and American
▶ 1:54:07companies are making are actually delivering winning outcomes thank you Mr chairman there's a couple of things you you what you made there and your last sentence is probably one of the most important things we haven't talked about here which is technology transfer from federally funded research whether that's at universities or National Labs out into Innovative businesses and and I have to say I don't think higher education does that very well there are very few universities that really do that well and
▶ 1:54:38and National Labs honestly are even worse um and so so I would suggest that that might be an area where this committee really drill down so how to accelerate the transfer of Technology at the speed of Innovation um and there may be some things to do differently and I may I may disagree with Walter on this one um I actually think that some of the federal laws with respect to intellectual property need to change from my perspective the value of the research as a university
▶ 1:55:09is in the research and the development of the phds through doing research we do a lousy job of getting that IP out into companies so things like bu do may actually limit the amount of research that can be done at or that can be transferred out because of the way it's all set up what if we reth thought this what if there was a national IP bank for any federally funded research and we didn't rely on distributed
▶ 1:55:39small single person offices at universities to try to get that technology out into the Eco system and the same for Technologies developed at National Laboratories it would be a very different approach um and I think ultimately could benefit the researchers and the universities but let the universities focus on doing the research and developing the talent and let someone else commercialize the IP the second is IP usually transfers on two feet so how do you get more entrepreneurs
▶ 1:56:09into the labs as entrepreneurs and residents in there not necessarily doing a master's degree or whatever but actually just engaging with those scientists and understanding what's there to go out and start their next company so I think there's a way to really restructure this but it's going to require some big thinking and some heavy lifting from this committee thanks for that Dr Wilson what anybody else like to oine yeah let me uh let let me uh U uh double down on on that because I do believe that um that the legislative Frameworks
▶ 1:56:40that we have uh around the B act are are very helpful and uh and really have stood the United States in uh in in great stead the United States actually already has um a a repository of all the intellectual properties that are available from federally funded research uh at universities as well as uh from our federal uh Laboratories um but we do have a need to coordinate much more effectively um we need to modernize
▶ 1:57:10legislation uh I mentioned the Stevenson widler act in particular and the results of the uh the nist green paper that uh those those findings are are as relevant today as they were several years ago and uh uh and and so I believe that uh that stimulating the entrepreneurial connection between our research Enterprise um the sources of capital uh with the researchers who really know their technology and I fully agree uh that uh technology transfer really happens on on two
▶ 1:57:40legs uh but uh if you're a researcher at a place like nist my former agency um and you're working on something that's entrepreneurial you wind up having to quit Nest to be able to to work uh on a start up I'm out of time but thank you all very much really appreciate the witnesses and I yield back chairman you thank you very much um next representative Amo of Rhode Island thank you chairman Babin and I look forward to working with you uh over this Congress and I'm honored to serve in this Congress as a new ranking
▶ 1:58:10member uh on the subcommittee on the environment and where possible I look forward to working with subcommittee chair Scott Franklin uh especially since we agree that America is blessed with emerging technologies that must be deployed in an environmentally sound manner that is sustainable for future Generations however uh as we hold this first hearing of the 119th Congress I do have real worry uh deep worry about the state of America's leadership in science and technology and look we know that the United
▶ 1:58:41States has led Innovation since our early days and I'm lucky to say being from Rhode Island that my state has been front and center and it's also Black History Month uh which I want to recognize by uh mentioning Philip Downing who uh once lived in Providence and who made it easier to send out our mail with the bright idea for the blue mailboxes that we see on street corners and so our country has done great things we discovered flight we put a man on the moon we created the internet
▶ 1:59:11uh the irony of innovation though and it's a great irony is that others will fill the void if we don't keep at it and that's what's happened you all know this uh between 1960 and 2020 our country's share of global research and development spending plummeted from 69% to 31% and as the United States has lost ground competitors have caught up I've heard it in this hearing uh we've talked about China and we've talked about their their work to be the second largest spender
▶ 1:59:41on research and development skyrocketing uh from accounting for over for almost 5% of global uh R&D spending in 2000 to nearly 2 5% in 2020 and so if there's one thing that unites government industry and Academia it's that we must reverse this trend and restore Federal funding for basic research thankfully Congress has increased authorization levels for key agencies like the National Science Foundation the department of energy and the National Institute
▶ 2:00:12of Standards and Technology Nest uh but it is Congressional malpractice to authorize at one level and then appropriate funding that fails to meet this critical moment now in the last two weeks our scientific Community has been turned upside down uh by President Trump's executive orders and an illegal attempt to Fe freeze Federal funding it is preventing research in my district and across the country my office has received calls from federally funded researchers who are understandably
▶ 2:00:42worried uh that they will not be able to carry out work that they were approved and funded to do across our country Grant review panels at the National Science foundation and the National Institutes of Health have been cancelled these delays without any sort of action from my Republican colleagues are causing the United States to fall behind and so to my colleagues I just ask is this pause normal is it warranted is loyalty to the agenda at 1600
▶ 2:01:12Pennsylvania Avenue worth the cost of China beating us is it worth delaying a potential cure for disease or breakthrough that makes America the Envy of the world why would my colleagues let this happen what is the end goal we have a role we are sent to Congress to get to work on these problems and drive at Innovation and solutions for the future so you know I the the question that I have
▶ 2:01:42uh Dr Peri is how does the Trump Federal fund and freeze destabilize scientific discovery and the early careers of researchers and how will it undermine the United States's already tenuous leadership in science yeah thank thank you for the question um you know what I've seen over the past two weeks has been just a incredible uncertainty amongst the scientific community and sometimes it's uncertainty without a concrete thing sometimes the pause was
▶ 2:02:13going to happen then it doesn't happen then it might happen it might not happen the the concrete thing is that most most research is continuing in the country but and this is a huge huge butt um is the uncertainty has caused a lot of folks particularly early career scientists to reink is this is this the right place for me because graduate students postdocs the people who do the work in the Sciences are living paycheck to paycheck they just are um and so when they when this lack of a certainty happens
▶ 2:02:43even if it's for a period of two or three weeks it leaves a scar it leaves a scar and a bit of broken trust in in this process and I think that those folks are going to go on to work in the Aerospace industry they're going to go on to work in AI everything that we care about and that we're talking about in this hearing in terms of our competition and it's a self-inflicted wound it's not necessary if we could talk about it from the top and say science remains a priority and we're going to continue uh and that this is the the concrete thing that's going to happen that would make
▶ 2:03:14such a difference well I know my time is up but I want to underscore that last sentiment uh this is a self-inflicted wound and with that I yield back my time time expired thank you very much uh now I'd like to call on representative uh Fong from great state of California uh thank you Mr chairman I look forward uh to working with you and my uh my second term on this committee uh to make sure that America remains a global leader in research research and development
▶ 2:03:44Dr Wilson uh I represent California's Aerospace Valley uh so I have uh I have I have the Naval Air Weapon Station China Lake we go up to uh mof air and Spaceport uh we go to NASA Armstrong and then we have Edwards Air Force Space uh certainly a lot of conversation about AI Quantum commercial space now hypersonics is becoming a lot more in in the conversation as a a national priority soer launch uh tested the first reusable hypersonics vehicle boom supersonic just tested the first civil
▶ 2:04:14supersonic jet the xp1 um certainly a lot of conversation about public private partnership as well as the need for uh DOD collaboration I was wondering with your unique perspective uh as president of UTEP Secretary of US Air Force uh member of Congress how can we Foster more collaboration from NASA uh with the Department of Defense as well as allow NASA and other science agencies to attract even more greater participation uh from the private sector
▶ 2:04:45um thank you Mr chairman I think um there's a number of mechanisms that can work but it requires the leaders of those entities to want to work together we used to when I was the Secretary of the Air Force we used to call them family meetings we would get together and U every quarter review our portfolios I would do that with the director of NASA and also the director of the CIA uh and Science and Technology there are some very close relationships there as well as with the national reconnaissance office and driving forward getting getting people to work together and the services to work with each other
▶ 2:05:15to advance research and development very quickly um that actually is possible to do to work to to force people work together the um the the secretary of the Army Navy and Air Force we used to get along quite well we'd have unlike our predecessors I guess and we have breakfast together every two weeks with no agenda and no staff actually it terrified the Pentagon um and uh but we got a lot done starting with research and development and we stripped five years out of hypersonic tests by combining
▶ 2:05:45our research efforts telling our people to work together go fast innovate and take the best so so I think it can happen it requires that kind of leadership do you have anything to add Mr copen uh yes indeed and and uh a number of our conversations today have been about coordinating across the inter agency um um that's a perfect example of uh of the kind of partnership that uh that was necessary when I was director at nist uh we had very regular uh Gatherings
▶ 2:06:16with the leadership of the Department of energy with the National Science Foundation leadership and with the nation Institutes of Health leadership for exactly the same reasons having a functional inter Agency for the United States and to bring together our resources in ways that that are not duplicative but where we seek Synergy where we seek opportunities to accelerate uh the Science and Technology agenda of the United States because we have that common interest um and uh and in many ways um it's the people
▶ 2:06:46working together that can accomplish great things but they also need the support of this committee as we look the kind of legislative um uh barriers that we sometimes run into and so uh as we look at the authorities that are that are available and the new kinds of uh partnership uh options that are going to be important for the future of government I look forward to the great work of this committee if if we if I could delve in a little deeper a lot of what you're saying is individual Centric you know depends on the leaders to to bring people together
▶ 2:07:17uh to facilitate meetings to facilitate conversations certainly our chall challeng is looking forward not in the short term but what is our challenge 30 years from now where where do we want America to be as my colleagues would say we want America to be dominant in all All Phases of of science and research and development and then work backwards so are what are those barriers what are the structural challenges and you know is there are there things that we need to codify in place to facilitate um those Partnerships U
▶ 2:07:47so yeah so let me let me begin with the uh with the return on investment legislation that was submitted to this committee uh some years back um and that update the Stevenson widler act and and there are certainly other opportunities uh for flexibility and in mechanisms um uh we haven't spoken very much today about the role of the office of Science and Technology policy and the role of the National Science and Technology Council the convenings of those inner agencies and bringing together these leaders uh focused on the
▶ 2:08:17future of the of the Enterprise looking to coordinate um we talked about the uh the mining sector a little bit earlier on and and the and the necessity of bringing together all of these parties that that are important stakeholders and uh and bringing together the funding opportunities but also shared priorities nationally Mr Hammond did you have anything to yes thank you Mr F remaining time um just for context in 2016 I published a paper called make America boom again the case for bringing back supersonic so I know quite a lot about
▶ 2:08:47the supersonic issue and I think it's actually a good uh archetyp type for why science and progress has slowed down since the 70s because in 1973 the FAA outlawed through regulatory decree supersonic flight over land um there are now new technologies and potential Technologies to make low boom supersonic uh Jets and and that's an area where proactive forward leaning regulation can make a big difference I appreciate that we're trying to get a super sonic Corridor uh through my through my district so uh I appreciate uh all the uh all the
▶ 2:09:18the guidance and input my time's run out but I look forward to work with all of you mrman are you back thank you um and now representative Superman from uh from Virginia Commonwealth for Virginia yes sir thank you Mr chair yeah Congressman C monium so I want to thank uh the chair and everyone for um this hearing today I think this is a really critical topic making sure that we have leadership in science and technology it's more important than ever
▶ 2:09:48and um you know honestly I'm I'm a little bit concerned um right now and I know others have expressed that concern and uh what I'm concerned about is is what I'm hearing from my constituents because we have a lot of research facilities we have a lot of technology companies uh in Northern Virginia and uh they are scared and they are concerned about uh what's going to happen next a lot of people who rely on NSF grants uh now are not sure if they're going to receive those grants in full
▶ 2:10:18a lot of people who uh rely on federal f funding for research are now not sure and these these aren't just you know pet projects we're talking about um you know flu vaccines every year we're talking about uh you know eradicating you know infectious diseases uh really important stuff and so you know I really want um you know my question and maybe Dr periki could answer this is uh you know someone told me that even a month of lab time that's delayed or or taken away because of a freeze
▶ 2:10:48could actually cost a research project many months if not years could you tell me a little bit more about that whether how true that is um when there isn't funding when there is a freeze U you can see things like uh the lack of being able to hire a new postdoctoral researcher you can see things like having to uh take experiments and and some things can be put into stasis but some things cannot they have to just be restarted and so that has real effects and so the twoe Gap doesn't turn into two weeks later it turns into two or four or six or eight
▶ 2:11:19uh that said uh you know one of the things that is worrying me is that the uncertainty is there not yet these gaps and so the uncertainty can cause problems as well because sometimes even if you have funding you say I'm not sure about it so I won't make that higher today I won't buy that piece of equipment today and so that's an uncertainty thing and that can be fixed with just leadership communicating sure and what would the consequences of halting clinical trials that provide patients critical treatments that they might not get anywhere else like what would that impact
▶ 2:11:49be like what would the results of that be especially on our leadership in science and technology uh if if there were that would be a huge uh a huge challenge because we are at this moment in the leadership place in life sciences and biotech but I can tell you it's a tenuous lead uh with our with our competitors in China that said I was really happy to see some uh some uh Clarity from the NIH leadership saying that uh that clinical trials will continue uh even even during this time of transition
▶ 2:12:19and I just want to talk a little bit about what I heard from my constituents I had a town hall a few days ago and over the past two weeks I've gotten hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of of inquiries and letters and emails from people uh just really concerned you know one constituent said you they work in electron M microscopy research which is uh nearly fully funded um by federal by federal government and their industry is terrified um they feel like they cannot do this research anymore and we will lose a lot of ground on this front
▶ 2:12:49a young biomedical engineer ing graduate um isn't sure about her career choices anymore um you know that's a in demand field but she's afraid that she's going to lose her salary and get laid off and that students like her could leave the industry all together and so you know we're talking about a brain drain in science and technology in this country and and a nurse and even a whole research facility um is worried about um our ability to address and respond to pandemics because we're underfunding health research and so
▶ 2:13:20you know with all the challenges that we are facing right now delaying Federal funding freezing Federal funding I think is going to cause irreparable damage to our country and our leadership in science and technology and it could cost the lives of patients it could cost lives around the world because we are seen as a leader on science and technology so I hope this committee and I hope we can work in a bipartison way to fund Science and Technology stop these Mass layoffs stop these freezes and work together to be leaders in this space thank you Mr chair I yield
▶ 2:13:50thank you very much and I'd like to call on representative heropoulos from great state of Florida thank you Mr chairman I really appreciate first that that you put four really qualified people before us in our first committee meeting it's very much appreciated getting a as a freshman member of the Congress we're excited to work with you and I happen to chair the the space uh subcommittee looking forward to working with each of you and uh your valuable testimony means a lot to us as we get started this year in these new challenges um I wanted to get first into the idea if
▶ 2:14:20I could to the uh secretary um of the Air Force uh Miss Wilson uh obviously we fa a major threat from China and that threat is growing each day and as you mentioned in your comments earlier uh some of the areas of critical concern that we actually behind China and of course our goal as mentioned before is to be space dominant and now the the Communist dictatorship that is China is rapidly uh moving forward and we want to make sure we not only catch up on those areas but surpass them
▶ 2:14:51to protect our troops in the field um I my question to you and I'd also ask Mr Hammond to comment on this as well if you don't mind what are the consequences if we don't uh meet these challenges what might we Face from the Chinese thank you Mr chairman with respect to space any future conflict will extend to space and I was the first you know I'm I'm the former secretary I'm now the President of University but I was the first president U first um Secretary of the Air Force to use space and War fight
▶ 2:15:21in the same sentence and to be kind of allowed to do that publicly um so conflict will extend to space so we've got to understand the threat develop the strategies to meet that threat and then develop the capabilities to Prevail uh and and deter conflict so so uh failure to do so compromises our national security and creates instability in the world now I would also say there are some people who think that this can all be handled by commercial Technologies and it can't and we can
▶ 2:15:51go into that in more detail if you wish Mr hav uh space is a testament to the ways in which the private sector has taken the lead um you know in the past where NASA may have funded the Apollo program we're now doing similar and actually more impressive Feats through through private initiative and so the commercialization of space is core to promoting us science including through uh Venture Capital through uh new startups and everything from asteroid mining to uh data centers in space
▶ 2:16:21um and I think the commercial approach is also a way to ensure that space remains uh you know peaceful um because Commerce often promotes peace and if I could Mr having to follow up you mentioned earlier in comments about Dei the amount of money that's been spent over the last few years I know you didn't may have enough time to talk about before could you elaborate on that please yeah sure the earlier comments that the numbers a quarter of NSF grants being Dei related were were were false I think are totally untrue um I I be happy to submit to a record
▶ 2:16:51an independent study uh from Leaf R from the center for the study of partisanship and ideology which shows uh replicates essentially what what the Senate study found um all these terms latinx intersectional marginalized disparity Equity go up and to the right they look like invidious price and well it is true that you you dig deep and might see nothing there but um you know I dug up an example as we as we were uh during these proceedings there there was a study from um nsf's
▶ 2:17:22cognitive behavioral division uh looking at the the title of the study is clarifying the role of inflammation and social pre Prejudice the the thesis is that inflammation causes social Prejudice so what they did is they administered an influen influenza vaccine and then did a psychology study and found that people who got the shot had more in-group bias in other words vaccines make you racist right this is not actual science this is uh you know a $200,000 Grant uh in supposed Behavior science this sets
▶ 2:17:52this sets science back and it's a massive distraction it's also demoralizing to academic faculty thank you Mr Hond and again the President Wilson real quick if if you could give me your recommendation on on how do we make sure we are the leaders in space if you had your one minute kind of soapbox and said how do we lead it once again what's your soapbox message to Everyday Americans I I think it's going to take a lot of on the Civil side and the National Security side it is to advance knowledge in its application to Rapid get techologies
▶ 2:18:23to the war fighter where needed um and uh um and uh I I think I'd probably focus on those two things I do have to say something about this issue about uh uh uh these you know anal this what NSF is doing with respect to uh to um um minority representation and so forth 65 million Americans are Hispanic 65 million it's the fastest growing race ethnic group in America 19%
▶ 2:18:53of our Workforce but only 6% of our phds we either reach this next generation and Inspire them to participate in science and engineering or we will lose as a nation that's what's at stake and that's what universities like UTEP are seeking to do with the support of the State of Texas National Science Foundation National Institutes of Health and others you're here thank
▶ 2:19:23you Madame President and with that Mr chairman you back yes sir thank you very much and now representative Rivas from California thank you Mr chair uh as a new member of Congress I'm excited to serve on this committee and I want to start um with Dr Wilson which is a perfect segue um to what um you your your previous comment you know I'm the only Latina with a background and stem in this Congress I'm a double e uh and uplifting
▶ 2:19:54the stem Workforce um is an issue that's personal to me and one that I have worked on over the years as an engineer as a nonprofit leader as a California state legislator uh you know while I didn't attend a Hispanic serving institution I've been very supportive of hsis um especially in California in the San Fernando Valley we have Kel State Northridge uh and that has received Millions um in federal
▶ 2:20:24funding um for its HSI um stem Equity programs and I'm familiar with utps you know being a top tier research University Hispanic serving institution um and all that you've done to increase diversity and stem and but as you mentioned you know UTP doesn't have a Dei office um but you have an Institute of Hispanic Student Success and you know UTP is home
▶ 2:20:54to Leading Scholars uh in diversity and science you've received you know millions in federal funding NSF grants uh to help other universities understand what they can do to create more equity in stem which is what the E and Dei stands for right uh and so but recently you know the Administration has rescinded uh two Biden executive orders that uh Provide support
▶ 2:21:25for Hispanic serving institutions and with all of this uncertainty um over you know NSF funding and Dei and all of that um you know I'm concerned for institutions like yours um that have received millions of dollars um for programs uh especially in diversity and Science and so my question for you what would the impact be on UTP and its students
▶ 2:21:55if all Outreach and support and federal funding for hsis eliminated congresswoman there's a we've taken a different approach at at UTP uh we don't have a Dei office and we I think that what UTP has done has been much more effective and the results show that um we started out with with and this has taken place over 35 years years and we started out with multiple regression analyses of our student body and understanding
▶ 2:22:26what are the things and what are the factors that are most important to Student Success and then in a very boring and systematic way implementing those things for in a comprehensive way so uh so we haven't gone in the direction that I think is the concern I do think that there's a lot of confusion um about what Dei is and what it is not and that may be an area where where things can clarify mentioned that you know you have NSF funding to create more equity in stem what's confusing
▶ 2:22:56about that with we have a number of federally funded programs like we lead the Computing Alliance of Hispanic serving institutions as an example a network of 70 institutions that are intended to try to engage more students and get them involved in stem and so so I don't see um you know most of the Dei movement is over the last four years and the you know we can read the popular books on them and so forth but they're quite different from the inclusive Excellence strategies pursued by universities like
▶ 2:23:27UT I I think other universities um don't H serve majority Hispanic or other minorities like I I attended MIT um that had a diversity office and provided the support and Student Success programs like yours does and probably learn from institutions like yours um and that's a Dei office right because we are not the university is not majority Hispanic uh but you know
▶ 2:23:57but you know the administration is also proposing to eliminate Department of Education which is where HSI funding comes from how would that um impact UT well certainly Title 5 funding pel grants and all of those things um are absolutely vital to higher education there's absolutely no question about that and would require require technical would require congressional action in order to in order to change those things okay thank you for your response I'm running out of time but I really believe
▶ 2:24:27we're that we're shooting ourselves in the foot like others have said um by you know potential Federal funding freezes for successful programs like yours thank you thank you representative Kennedy from great state of Utah thank you Mr chair and to the ranking member as well it's great to be here on this committee and I'm honored to be here with you and thank you to the witnesses you've been sitting there for a long time and listening to us come and go and and I'm impressed with your physiologic potency to to be able to
▶ 2:24:58tolerate not only the questions intellectually but also to be able to sit there for so long Utah's fast becoming a leader in science and technology in fact we have our silicon slopes to compete with Silicon Valley and I'm proud of the Thousand businesses that are actually represented there and part of that infrastructure is a reflection and I'll ask my two academics when it comes to Mr Wilson and Mr copen I'm curious about the pipeline of students that are coming into your organizations all four of you have testified about the the significant challenges we have on an
▶ 2:25:28the international stage to keep up what I'm concerned about is the quality of our education which we've talked about in this committee from K through 12 and when a child learns in second and third grade that they should be scared of math then they're very hesitant to explore any further in that I'm a family doctor I went through Medical School Premed I did the physics the I I I did the organic and inorganic chemistry and I I know most if not all of you have done those sort of things as well although the economics professor maybe I don't know how many physics classes you took
▶ 2:25:59to get through the economics associated with that but but what I'm concerned about particular with Co lockdowns we've talked about spending freezes but we swallowed the pill of Co lockdowns and our children for a generation may have significant academic deficiencies because of the fear of a virus which turned out to be very different from what we thought thought so the academic environment in the college arena is reflected significantly by the children
▶ 2:26:29in elementary school and my question is is what can we do on that level to make sure that children can go into courses like physics and deep math like calculus one two and three and so on and that they're not scared to do these things later on so Miss Wilson if you would Dr Wilson if you would start and then Dr Copan if you would follow um with answers on that because I'm really concerned the children actually learn early not to go into these subjects that that we need our Engineers to go into
▶ 2:27:00thank you Mr chairman I I you know some people go into ear early childhood education because they don't like math and science and um and I I have friends who who would tell me that um uh there's some things that are working in West Texas one is 25 years ago or so they created the collaborative for academic excellence 70% of the teachers in West Texas were educated at UTP no other Comm Community I've ever lived in has there been this close a connection between the school
▶ 2:27:30districts the community college and the university and the university can't sit there and say well you know the the kids aren't graduating with what they need from from K to 12 because we educated the teachers we better look in the mirror if we think that and rather than blaming each other people got together and focused initially on teacher quality and we also have an agreement on sharing data so that if a group of students don't do well in freshman chemistry at UTEP we know who their High School te chemistry teachers were so
▶ 2:28:00that we can go back and say how do we in how do we raise the level of all the boats and that's why West Texas has one has one of the lowest income levels of any region of Texas but one of the highest college gradu uh College post High School um College ATT uh uh attendance levels uh in the state of Texas and so so there are ways to F facilitate that collaboration and have universities and Community College really focus on
▶ 2:28:30teacher quality thank you Dr Copan let let me add to that and uh and I do agree that it's so important for uh leading universities like Colorado School of Minds uh which is a highly selective University U and so we have a a pipeline of incoming students that represents the best of the best in the United States um and we are a state uh University as well so we have obligations regionally um we have an obligation at and
▶ 2:29:01Partnerships at the K through 12 level um uh similarly to build and to assure uh that uh that the schools that are part of the feeder system are are uh qualifying uh uh uh their graduates uh to join uh Partnerships at the community college level to ensure that every credit uh that a student will take at a community college will transfer because we have worked together uh to ensure that uh an Associates of engineering program is fully qualified um and has been
▶ 2:29:31vetted jointly with uh with Colorado School of Minds we're also very proud of the fact that uh in the United States we have the highest return on investment on education there's a lot of people who are concerned about higher ed um is it worth it um and so looking at the Student Success uh aspects and engaging then with the federal Laboratories engaging with Idaho National Lab um and ensuring that our students also have the opportunity to uh to work u in fields that are
▶ 2:30:01that are meaningful that will prepare them uh for the future uh success in the workforce thank you for those answers and Mr chair I'll yield back in just a moment I I think if we looked at Chinese elementary students we may see some of the reasons why we have a generation of distinctions and that social influencing seems to be more important in some of our educ educational curriculums than it does to take these hard sciences and there's a good reason why they call them hard Sciences they are very difficult but I appreciate your efforts and what you've testified for us and with that Mr chair I yield
▶ 2:30:31back thank you very much sir thank you very much uh I'd like to call Representative Turner from great state Texas thank you Mr chairman now I've had the uh uh the privilege of representing um a city with Rice University and uh University of Houston miam M um Texas Southern historically by University um
▶ 2:31:02and we've had these conversations many times uh but I want to refer you um the national Academy's report on equity and K through 12 stem education um highlights that persistent inequities and and access to stem opportunities driven like by factors like raise income and geography continue to limit participation and success in these fields it is important
▶ 2:31:33that we work to expand educational access secure Federal funding for institutions that serve a very diverse student population and further develop policies that broaden Pathways into stem careers uh Dr Pera did I get that right Peri I think Peri and Dr copen um could each of you speak to the specific policies or Investments That would be most effective
▶ 2:32:03in closing these in equities uh where the gaps exist and how do we make the most progress in the shortest period of time thank you for the question it's it this is a critical question for the country um we are a we're a country that is changing over time if we are not pulling from all parts of the country we are not going to compete with China or anybody else and so uh what are the things that can be the most uh the most beneficial one is
▶ 2:32:33making sure that we are getting opportunity for everyone to participate in the sciences and being inspired by The Sciences so it shouldn't be that if you don't get in seventh grade into Algebra 1 that you're never going to be an engineer that just shouldn't be true anywhere in this country because it might turn out that you had a bad teacher in sixth grade it might turn out you had a bad year in seventh grade and you didn't get into algebra but if we can make it to where there are many multiple paths into engineering then we can get there that's just one example but the reason why we have to do that is that there is there is now Talent all
▶ 2:33:03over this country it's like basketball you know there was a time when all the basketball players went to Kentucky or Duke or UCLA now they can go to any college basketball uh team in the country we have enormous uh talent in this country we have wonderful institutions in this country let's make sure that we're that we're feeding those I fully agree with uh uh the comments that uh that sudip shared and and um having first and foremost a welcoming environment for students regardless of where they're from
▶ 2:33:34um and uh and ensuring that they know that they have a home and a pathway to build a career of uh of success is uh is essential um I I had mentioned uh uh the fact that uh that we are an elite University and and and so so uh we have worked very hard to ensure that uh that everybody has a chance so uh about 35% of our uh student population are are women and also about 35% represent minorities
▶ 2:34:05and uh and we're thrilled we have the uh the largest chapter of the Society of women Engineers anywhere uh at uh at Colorado School of Minds so building Community but also creating Outreach and inspiring the next generation about the possibilities they're not going to be able to participate uh in the Innovation economy and the excitement there unless they're encouraged and encouraged at home as well as at uh at school and the important role that guidance counselors
▶ 2:34:35play throughout this whole journey um and connecting them with leading universities connecting them uh with the kinds of resources so that their students can hear uh personal stories of people that look just like them and when we are pulling from these various backgrounds would you agree with me um that we are making our country more competitive that uh and our our failure to do so puts us at a
▶ 2:35:05disadvantage when competing globally would all of you agree with me on that we need the best of America to be part of this journey with us and and let me just say so it's important for us to be intentional just like our colleges and universities go after the best baseball players or basketball players or football players no one yells about diversity and inclusion
▶ 2:35:36there it is equally important that we go after our academicians our students in a very way thank you I you back m m Mr chairman okay uh representative bigs from South Carolina thank you chairman Babin ma'am I appreciate you holding this important hearing today and I want to thank the distinguished panel for your
▶ 2:36:06Insight on these very important topics so as a new member of the science Bas and Technology committee um I'm very honored to serve in this position and eager to take your ideas and get to work card for the Third District of South Carolina so my first question is I want to direct it to Dr copen and Mr Hammond if you don't mind um Congressman Miller kind of touched briefly on this earlier but I have a little bit of a different
▶ 2:36:37um idea or thought on it so I would like to hear uh your information on this so public private Partnerships between National Labs Academia and industry are critical to maintaining us leadership in science and technology and ultimately saving American lives and for the well-being of our citizens so regarding artificial intelligence what partnership models have
▶ 2:37:07worked well to maintain and to advance us dominance in this sphere and where can the United States learn from its failures in the AI domain thank you so much what a what a uh wonderful question and I do uh believe that uh uh that we are on a journey and learning as we go I think that uh public private Partnerships that um that bring together
▶ 2:37:38um uh all these players um uh are certainly uh exemplified in in uh the latest uh nist manufacturing USA uh uh Institute that f focuses on digital twin and so the application of artificial intelligence um in partnership with the private sector so there's uh 200 companies that are part of this new uh collaboration together with nist seven of the Department of energy Federal Laboratories are part of this uh uh relationship
▶ 2:38:08um and so having a flexible structure U utilizing uh the authorities under U what's called other transaction Authority uh that allows people to negotiate uh uh terms um and creates a framework then that can be leveraged um in other public private Partnerships and and we've been talking about repeatable Frameworks for Success here um I I think that the the United States really needs to look at our current
▶ 2:38:38lead in in uh uh key Technologies for AI in particular uh natural language processing where the US has a has a a key lead and and looking at the ways that we can really Double Down bring together uh those uh those top Minds nationally um and ensure that we're actually utilizing and then building upon uh the uh Innovation infrastructure including um high performance compute uh and GPU nodes we're talking about uh the important
▶ 2:39:09uh presence of major companies like uh like Nvidia and IBM and others uh to be collaborators in these initiatives great thank you on compute in particular I'd like to point you to a report just published two days ago from The Institute for Progress uh by Tim Fist and arnab data called compute in America it outlines a full strategy to create special compute zones on US Federal lands and all the Dynamics that would go into that um hardware and our data center ecosystem are is our core advantage in
▶ 2:39:39Ai and with China as I mentioned earlier adding hundreds of gwatt of energy to their to their grid uh just in the United States we're looking at over the course of this decade adding prospectively a Japan of energy in our data centers and so we need to have a concered effort to to build and build smart and also if we make use of federal lands and F and special Arrangements it also is an opportunity to induce uh private developers to build a capacity for DOD and doe including more secure
▶ 2:40:09facilities where private invest investment wouldn't normally flow great thank you so much and um just briefly Dr Wilson thank you so much much for your service to our country as an officer in the Air Force a member of Congress and as the secretary of the Air Force under President Trump as a health care professional and as a member currently of the Air National Guard I understand very well how research and development often ends up in life-saving technology
▶ 2:40:40not only in the military but in the private sector so my question to you is what is your experience with the disastrous de eii inclusion policies in the military as well as um the collegate research and development and how has this shifted the technological balance between the United States and China um chairman I'm probably not qualified to talk about the the how it's affected things with China
▶ 2:41:11UTP never created a de office and we um but we have results that people who advocate for Dei say they want um most of the Dei offices and training were really fueled by the black lives matter movement in 2020 and popularized by books like How To Be An anti-racist by ibam kendi and white fragility by by Robin D'Angelo which which uh were after my time as secretary thank you I yelled back
▶ 2:41:41thank you very much uh representative MC Brian from Delaware thank you Mr chairman it's a privilege to serve with you and uh with ranking member LOF grin it's an honor to be here at my first science space and Technology Committee hearing and I just got to say I am in awe of the four of you your perseverance and of course your willingness to share your expertise with us today I'm also looking forward to serving with all of my colleagues on this committee and to work Al alongside each and every
▶ 2:42:11one of them in a bipartisan manner as we've discussed today the United States has long L the world in science and technological innovation providing tangible benefits for my constituents in Delaware and for Americans across the country our work in this space creates jobs it lowers costs it improves health and quality of life and certainly drives economic growth now and for generations to come and as we've heard today this National leadership bolsters our influence around
▶ 2:42:41the world and strengthens our competitiveness against countries like China which as you mentioned uh Mr chairman uh they are w rapid L increasing their investment in R&D if we want to keep enjoying these benefits we've got to keep investing in that Innovation from the invention of nylon and Kevlar to credit cards our little state of Delaware has punched above our weight uh we've been on the Forefront of breakthroughs in science and technology that have really transformed our lives for the better
▶ 2:43:11and that pioneering work in Delaware it's not just happening at Major businesses but increasingly within our small businesses just last week I visited uh suia family-owned and operated small business on Main Street in the tiny beautiful town of Magnolia Delaware that's providing cuttingedge digital forensic hardware and software to law enforcement across the globe to hunt down human traffickers and combat cyber crime from the startups to our our Legacy employers the US has
▶ 2:43:41proudly become a leader in science and technology leadership that requires sustainable and I think as the witnesses have articulated already predictable Investments to maintain unfortunately as some of my colleagues have noted the current administration's illegal attempt to freeze Federal funding puts that leadership at risk while also putting Americans and delawarians out of work the University of Delaware go Blue Hens uh receives $190 million in
▶ 2:44:11federal research funding including $40 million from the National Science Foundation they and others in Delaware have received multiple work stop orders as a byproduct of the funding freeze I'm proud that the University of Delaware also houses the National Institution for Innovation and Manufacturing biofarm Pharmaceuticals also known as Nimble which leverages federal Investments to accelerate biotech Innovation and Advance competitiveness in that industry losing or even just seeing A disruption in
▶ 2:44:41this funding could have serious ramifications for Delaware and undermine our nation's leadership in this space globally and and so my first question to you uh Dr Copan I Saw You Smile as I mentioned Nimble as you know NIS coordinates the manufacturing USA Network of institutes like nimble at the University of Delaware uh as this Congress takes a look at science funding I'm curious if you believe uh that the manufacturing USA program and its funding remains critical
▶ 2:45:12to us competitiveness in advanced manufacturing and if you do continue to believe that why well thank you so much for the question welcome to the committee and uh and um the role that uh manufacturing USA Institute certainly Nimble as a uh a unique type of partnership between uh the private sector uh the engagement uh uh with nist um and some of the unique capabilities around Metrology and biology um is uh is a
▶ 2:45:42powerful combination um I spoke in my opening remarks about the importance of advanced Manufacturing in and the ability for Americans to make uh is also a key part of American innovation um as uh we learn as as we make we optimize uh we gain feedback from the customers um and it's such an important part of the Department of Defense Mission we've been talking about uh dual use Technologies and and
▶ 2:46:12uh manufacturing and materials side um I I believe it's essential for the United States to really focus on the manufacturing capacity that we have we have lost the edge and so here we have an opportunity to regain that uh rebuild the workforce um and and once again create Supply chains that are trusted nationally thank you very much I have many more questions uh but I'm out of time and I will yield back
▶ 2:46:43the rest thank you uh call on representative McCormack from Georgia thank you Mr chair and congratulations on your elevation to chairmanship it's awesome he's uh going to be a great leader for what we're trying to achieve uh in res in recent Federal grant freezes implemented by President Trump uh we have a valuable valuable opportunity to kind of review what the money's being spent on now we know that it's incredibly important to keep the United States on the Leading Edge of Technologies matter of
▶ 2:47:13fact at one time we're leading SP exploration development of computers other scientific advancement that nobody else in the world was doing Russia was trying to keep on parody with us but they're falling behind because they're trying to copy us now we spend probably three qus of our budget on welfare and we really don't invest in science space and Technology anymore other than the military and so we are falling behind so I think it's really important to have this grant process to keep us competitive into the future however the reason we' Frozen is because we found a tremendous amount of
▶ 2:47:43waste and diversion of those funds that could be helping your universities and your your leadership to advance those things do right now we are relying on the private sector such as Elon M to put more spaceships in toter space than the entire governments of all the rest of the countries in the in the world it's probably a dangerous predicament for us at this point relying on private institutions to do that for us so I want to address this from a realistic standpoint of how we move forward first of all we got to get rid of those kind of programs and I suggest that anybody's in a leadership position who sees those funds diverted
▶ 2:48:13Source something that doesn't make sense to the general public get rid of it because otherwise everything goes we throw the baby out with the bath water that's typical of the government uh so I just want to encourage you as Leaders to do that and review top down where you're spending your money so that it makes sense when your tuition goes up that it's being spent on things that actually make sense rather than just to increase the tuition for some sort of Endeavors I think it's also important to recognize that there's going to be a debate in science whether it be on covid Technologies uh on vaccinations
▶ 2:48:44on on science in general it could be global warming uh there's there's Democrats and Republican call into question what the science is if you seen unsettled by Coan a Democrat who calls into question the way we're studying things I think it's it really healthy to have disagreements especially in in institutions where if you always go with the one the one size fits all we never make advancements because we never question in medicine we've made tremendous advancements by the minority disagreeing with the majority and them being correct
▶ 2:49:15uh I think President Wilson I have a a direct question for you that kind kind of pertains to all this and how we advance uh we noticed in Georgia in the metro area we had become an innovation Powerhouse I I was a Georgia Tech alumni I've watched what they've done in science and and space and what they've done in Innovation for rockets and everything else in the Aerospace industry um what I love about the Georgia Tech Research Institute leading the way in the design of these different Technologies and now top 100 winter uh in Heat injury prevention system
▶ 2:49:45and developing robots capable of Maintenance in outer space which is incredibly exciting uh I reflect on how you've Advanced your University and how what you've done uh in place of a Dei system you kind of explained in previous uh questions but how do you explain the success you've had of elevating true diversity but through meritocracy and also recognizing that uh everybody's capable we have a incredible amount of diverse uh intelligence and innovation of
▶ 2:50:15all Races and both genders and and and watching people just explore their their ability to create without actually forcing it down somebody's throat and saying you're going to be elevated regardless what your ability is what's your secret to success Mr chairman and and and and Congressman thank you for the question I mean I think part of it is that we come at this from a very pragmatic approach which is we do recognize that that Talent is widely distributed opportunity is not all right we deal with a
▶ 2:50:46population that is disproportionately low inome come and uh that are first generation students and that's not on you know that's all probably all over the state of Georgia as well so what do you do you start out by analyzing and doing deep Dives on your own data on how students succeed what are the things that cause highrisk students to persist to graduation and focus on those things we have we have um advisors uh an an advising model that is comprehensive it's not
▶ 2:51:16just about registering kids for class it's looking at their Financial social academic um circumstances and then getting them engaged in the high impact practices that are proven and databased to to help people succeed there are universities in Georgia that have done the same and I think that those kinds of things um are much more successful and I in fact there was a rer study in November of 20124 that confirmed what a lot of people suspected that some
▶ 2:51:46of the focus on Dei and an anti-racism teaching and so on is not effective um it's actually counterproductive and there's a much better way and I just want to second that as a former student body president at morous school of medicine where I saw incredibly much more intelligent people and capable people than myself that didn't look like me uh but we had those amazing relationships and if you just let people flourish that school took people who NE necessarily wouldn't have had an opportunity and flourish scored above their their grade in the next
▶ 2:52:16test as they continue to develop and had those opport unties and it was all done on Merit and I love to watch it because everybody's capable if they're given a chance uh God bless you for what you guys do appreciate well I think there's more than just being given a chance one of the things that all of us in this room live educated very successful lives and our kids and grandkids have us and that gives them an advantage our responsibility as Leaders is to reach out to the kids who don't even know that the door of opportunity
▶ 2:52:47is there and show them the door and engage them so that they want to come in with us that's the difference well said uh and from the private sector I appreciate all these Solutions we give that are outside the government scope because that's the real power of the United States God bless you you thank you now I'd like to call on the gentleman from California Mr Whitesides thank you Mr chairman
▶ 2:53:17and and thank you for um your leadership um we're looking forward to working with you and uh I think it's a great subject for our first hearing I'm sorry that you guys have to go without lunch um you know we get to go to other stuff I'll be quick because I don't have much time I just want to talk about uh the pipeline and stability um I I was really um touched by a couple of points in in various points of your testimony um in terms of the pipeline um secretary
▶ 2:53:47sorry president President Wilson uh was talking about The Graduate research fellowship program of 16,000 applicants last year for only about5 200 scholarships from NSF um you know that that speaks to the potential to grow the pipeline I'd love for you to talk about that but before I do that I just want to call out you know in our district the 27th we have great um educational pipeline we have the College of the Canyons we have analo Valley College uh I believe that uh community colleges also have an important role to play uh as as they as as working
▶ 2:54:18in concert with you know the amazing institutions uh close to us uh Caltech UCLA all these other amazing uh places in the in the NASA facilities that we have NASA Armstrong and JPL I I have to say I was I was shocked and disappointed about the um the the freezes um as some of you may know that happened at a key moment um the math uh scholarships um were were paused right at the moment when folks were deciding where they were going to do their post dos and so that's that's a point where we could lose our leader
▶ 2:54:48ship right if people find that the instability uh that we're not a stable place then they could go take them in in China or somewhere else so uh any comments that you might have in their mind may maybe uh President Wilson could start on the importance of the pipeline and the importance of stability in in promoting that pipeline thank you Mr chairman and Congressman you're right that pipeline or pathway is an is an important thing and with respect to the graduate research fellowship program at the National Science Foundation one of the there there are two things I would say first of all the the one
▶ 2:55:18of the really good things about that program is it puts the scholarship money in the hands of the student not NE not the principal investigator so the student can then go find what's right for them and I think that's really powerful and it may not be what most University presidents or or principal investigators will tell you right but I think it's really good for us long term with respect to expanding the pathway and inspiring the Next Generation the second thing is many NSF grants don't require that the Pi report
▶ 2:55:49who they're funding as graduate students I think that's something to take a look at um and as far as expanding opportunities for American students and there may be opportunities as well the third thing I would say is to partner with the states the National Science Foundation reviews 16,000 Grant proposals from students who want to go on to graduate school no matter what that number is whether it's funded 2500 from the NSF or 3,000 there are going to be some qualified who
▶ 2:56:19are not funded but they want to do it well you don't have to review those proposals again partner with the states my guess is that there's an opportunity for the states to fund their own version of a graduate research fellowship program and not even have to re-review the so I think that there's an opportunity and that gets back to strategies to partner rather than just do everything at he terrific thank you if I can add uh to that the uh the private sector has a very important
▶ 2:56:49role to play here as well um in offering um opportunities for internships opportunities for co-ops for students and uh uh and really augmenting what's available from the from the federal side um the federal laboratory system and we talked a little bit earlier on about the role that Idaho National Lab the national renewable energy laboratory my former uh agency of of nist uh those fellowships uh the chance to uh to get the hands-on experience
▶ 2:57:20um and to look at inspiring not only those students who are going through it but everybody that they're talking to right it's their families um it's the it's the uh the kids in the uh elementary schools who are hearing about these exciting opportunities in stem by the people who are doing this Hands-On great thank to speak and support the NSF graduate research fellowship program I was one of those um and what I can say about it is you know I grew up in Western North Carolina my parents worked in textile
▶ 2:57:50mills and Furniture factories they didn't make a lot of money and when you look at how do you get into the Sciences how are you inspired to be in the Sciences uh what you realize is if there's a fellowship like that that provides stability um then you don't need a safety nut from your parents because I wasn't a sa I didn't have a safety net I had I'm helping right and so that is that is the way to inspire and to get more of our more of our American students into the Sciences by providing that stability when we lose that stability we lose them if I could add one thing and that's the importance of
▶ 2:58:20Outreach um I I was a I was the first in my family to go to college I I had a faculty member who said you know if you weren't busy doing all this other stuff you might be able to be a road scolar as far as I was concerned that was sponsored by the Department of Transportation I had no clue right our students have no idea what a grfp is they have no idea what an opportunity of fbite Might open and there's in addition and attached to my testimony you will see what Outreach does at a
▶ 2:58:50very small office to inform students and open their eyes to what the opportunity is that's replicable at Hispanic serving institutions across this country that's my time thank you so much all right thank you now Mr Weber Texas well he Save The Best For Last okay Mr hman I'm going to come to you and your testimon you state that Innovation does not begin or
▶ 2:59:21end in the lab but rather the most practical Innovations result from the process of quote learning by doing could you elaborate further on that certainly I I uh whether it's batteries solar panels any one of these technological uh categories uh real Innovation happens by scaling up production figuring out when you have actual people manufacturing the thing uh how to uh discover new chemical compounds new ways of uh process
▶ 2:59:51Innovation that drive down cost and actually lead to genuine scientific breakthroughs many of the scientific breakthroughs that came from NASA's original Space Program were because we were just trying to get to the moon and pursuant to that you had to invent a lot of new technologies to get there it's not because we had dozens of uh bespoke grants or request proposals and we need to get back to something more like that as in and how we structure science funding so does the name Thomas Alva Edison bring a bell with you so he worked in his left y'all have all shaking y'all
▶ 3:00:21none y'all almost as old as I am I see that yeah so he worked in his La how many times did it take him to get the incandescent light bulb anybody guess hundreds anybody know over a thousand okay over a thousand so he was absolutely putting the Hands-On approach in that lab he stuck to it he had that stick to it this when governor of Texas Rick Perry ran for the president in 20 12 uh one of the his calling cards was he used to say
▶ 3:00:51we want the states to be the Laboratories of invention I don't know if any of you all remember that Dr Bon you might remember that he wanted the states to be the Laboratories of invention so we want that to be the case we want and I own an AIC company 35 years you're out there doing hard hard work sweat and Blood Sweat and Tears and you're putting everything in it you can that's the kind of attitude we need coming back to you Mr Hammond um and your testimony you state that quote it is disturbing to see growing indications
▶ 3:01:22that Federal science funding has lost its bang for the buck elaborate yeah to the point about States being the laboratory of invention uh one of the side effects of federalizing science funding is we put all our eggs in one basket and we do try to course correct for that with sort of ad hoc programs to try to diversify where funding is going um but the still all in one basket and so on the margin I would be very much in support of decentralizing science funding back to the states in some cases um this is also pursuant to some of uh
▶ 3:01:52the other comments about you know how do we get more young people into programs and so on um there's lots of evidence showing that younger researchers are you know that's where creativity Peaks um but because uh over time the age of an average principal investigator has increased and now they're basically gray in the hair until you get to run your own program so but it's it's fair to say isn't it that you those the people need stick to it did this mhm Thomas Edison had it right but they also need encouragement at home
▶ 3:02:22to be bringing them up they need to know the opportunities that we're all talking about here today um finally in in your testimony uh you point out that many of today's most transformative science breakthroughs now occur privately funded nonprofit research organizations why do you think that is and can you can you put a quantitive number on that is it 10% is it 30% what do you think it's unclear what
▶ 3:02:53in dollar terms but in terms of impact you know take a company like open AI open AI started as a nonprofit uh funded in part through Elon Musk and is now basically the center of attention for all US policy around AI um I also mentioned Arc Institute which which discovered a new Genting technique the reason more and more research is shifting into these in these private research organizations often partnering with universities is to get away from the academic bureaucracy and the bureaucracy that uh
▶ 3:03:23tags along with Federal research dollars and so I think the it's it's really a canary in the coalmine that something has gone wrong institutionally in our science agencies good to know in my time left is it Dr President Wilson uh how do you feel about is is that something y'all noticed at UT uh at college I not so much the bureaucracy issue but I do take your point with respect to learning by doing and the need
▶ 3:03:53to closely connect research and development with operations take the corona project which was the first satellite program one of the early satellite programs very rapid Innovation closely connected research and development with operations Century series aircraft the F100 101 102 103 104 very rapid Innovation getting things built and out there and doing things and I think when it comes to space declaration connecting closely the people making the decisions with the operators and the innovators will be absolutely
▶ 3:04:24vital to getting back safely to the moon and Beyond to Mars yeah well I appreciate that Mr chairman I'll you back yes sir thank you very much and uh representative Gillan from New York thank you chairman and thank you ranking member uh thank you to our Witnesses for testifying today as a new member of the committee I'm very much looking forward to working together in bipartisan manner to keep the US a leader in technology and in in Innovation uh so my first question
▶ 3:04:54secretary Wilson as you know uh the national defense strategy identifies China as the department of defense's pacing Challenge and highlights the need to make the right technological Investments That sharpen our comp Competitive Edge and we've recently seen China's deep seek AI model surpass our own models like chat gbt what is the single most important thing that Congress needs to do to ensure that the United States remains dominant when it comes
▶ 3:05:24to key technology like artificial intelligence probably one of my colleagues is better uh Sam's probably better at that answer than I am um but I actually think that that um you know this this week's kafuffle with respect to deep seek is interesting but I think there are American companies who are also pursuing similar strategies and frankly there are also lowcost closed uh closed rather than open AI approaches like Gemini um
▶ 3:05:54uh that um that are um nearly as good so we need to compete and win in the AI space most of that is happening in the private sector Mr Hammond would you like to add to that yes three points open source so deep seek because they lack the ability to actually monetize it they don't have the the the gpus and data centers they've made it fully open source it's now being used by millions of Developers number one app on the app store we need to compete on open source so that worldwide researchers are using American models not Chinese models second
▶ 3:06:25energy uh as I've talked about before China is adding hundreds of gws of energy to their grid they've caught up on the technical side with AI but they're their constraints are on Hardware we've export controlled our most advanced ships this is point number three there are still gaps in those export controls especially on the enforcement side if those gaps remain open China will catch up on hardware and then leap ahead because they have energy thank you and if I can just add to that um uh I would be remiss as a former n director not to talk about uh the AI safety Institute the
▶ 3:06:55role of standards as well uh private sector LED but brought together uh through Federal funding and uh and the important uh connectivity with uh higher education to have also uh the uh the range of Workforce capabilities that the nation needs to win in AI thank you Dr PRI do you want to weigh in on this as well the only thing I'd add is that we are in a place where we know our competitor sees this as one of the possibilities for
▶ 3:07:25um for a step change in their economic growth and they see it and they've and they've put the energy into it and the passion into it and the dollars or Yan into it that they need to uh we have to see it in a similarly competitive way if we don't um there's no way to there's no way to win can I add just on the topic of the AI safety Institute um you know I've been critical of Dei and so forth during this hearing but uh I I cannot lever those same critiques to the AI safety Institute it's been wholly focused on
▶ 3:07:56National Security and preparedness um evaluating models it will be more and more important as we want to push these models into the US government for use and defense or or just you know maybe the Doge wants to use some some AI in government um we need some internal inhouse capacity to evaluate and then when it comes to open source you know there are uh studies from anthropic and others showing that it's very easy to to embed back doors and what are sometimes called sleeper agents into these AI models where you think the model behaves one way but there's some magic word that alters Its
▶ 3:08:26Behavior immediately and you can imagine if Chinese models become the dominant Paradigm that are in critical infrastructure worldwide that that would be a problem and so one of the roles the AI safety insute can play is by auditing models for security including the training data to validate and give s stamp of approval that American models are not just the best but the most secure and then that use that as a way to promote our models as export is there a way that Congress can help with that uh and the biggest piece is just continued funding support So to correct the record earlier it was said
▶ 3:08:56that uh the repeal of the Biden executive order repealed the a Institute which is not true the a a sa Institute is authorized under a national security memorandum I believe it's going to remain um but you know nist is uh there's pluses and minuses to having this in this one of them the budget is is very tight and there are proposals out there for instance for are a nist foundation that would allow private philanthropy to pitch in and actually allow uh reliable funding to go to the a Institute which has
▶ 3:09:26genuine funding needs because they're trying to train and test these models thank you yeah and if I could just add this committee has been very active with the uh the Epic bill which supports the uh the foundation uh model U and also the other return on investment legislation previously mentioned which which would much more uh broadly off authoriz uh not for-profit foundations across the federal sector to enable much more flexible models and different forms of funding to be brought in to augment federal
▶ 3:09:56funds thank you I still have more time the you lady think she heels back okay I had many more questions but I'll follow Freeman is recognized thank you very much thank you very much chair Babin and rank member LOF grin I was very excited to be appointed to this committee I was very excited to be able to talk about the hospitals in my district and the
▶ 3:10:27very large medical biotech facilities that we have the amazing NASA JPL scientists who live in my district about the work that's being done to Foster clean energy and to push back against the climate change which is wreaking havoc right now in California and around the world I was interested in pushing for forward uh policies and that will help encourage Research into fire resiliency and prevention in California and to make sure that America and particularly
▶ 3:10:57California because I am biased continue to lead the world on AI technology and other types of computer technology uh but today I'm finding it really hard to do that I have to say I have been inundated by phone calls from my constituents and from those same worldclass institutions and hospitals and research institutions directly because of the illegal actions that the Trump Administration is taking right now that's putting so much of their work at risk work that they have spent years putting
▶ 3:11:27in place receiving grants for uh all of that is jeopardized right now and I I'm finding it really hard to sit here and talk about directing funding towards research and development when it appears that Elon Musk can just illegally decide to not give that funding that was decided on and directed on a bipartisan basis through this committee and through Congress you know this includes life saving cancer research and I represent Cedar
▶ 3:11:57Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and most of their Advanced cancer patients received their treatment through NIH grants that right now as far as we can tell are frozen uh the critical climate science research that happens at NASA JPL is very much in Jeopardy um this is money that we have used to hire and encourage the best and the brightest in America and these are Republicans and Democrats who have directed this funding that has now been stopped
▶ 3:12:27so I have a question for Dr perique I I want to know throw me a Lifeline here how can I sit here in good conscience and have these conversations when it appears that even when this committee comes up in a bipartisan way with directions for funding for sign sence and research that money is now not going to get there if Elon mus decides he doesn't like the program what suggestions do you have to help us actually get the funding
▶ 3:12:57that Congress already appropriated to the right sources yeah U the answer for why is because we must uh we are in a competition we're in a race and uh you know first of all the folks in your District espe particularly at JPL uh I think almost 200 staff members at JPL lost their homes uh in the fires that's a tragedy um we are in a race and so if we are not if we are not funding the science going on at JPL there are things that JPL that are
▶ 3:13:28absolutely unique in this country in terms of space exploration in terms of uh our robots that that that look at the the planets in this in this solar system um they can't be rebuilt uh without unless there's stability continuing them and keeping them going forward um what gives me hope is that I see the resilience of the scientists and Engineers who are out in the community and one of the things i' I've said over and over again is that uncertainty really worries our early career scientists and whether it's the mechanisms that that Dr Hammond talks about or that or
▶ 3:13:58the the status quo whatever that is those early career scientists they're going to be the ones doing it for the next 20 or 30 years and we have to keep them in this Enterprise and so um when I think of what gives me hope is that they're resilient enough to continue moving forward because they want to solve problems and we policy makers politicians leaders of great instit tions have to make sure that the Enterprise has the stability to get them there well thank you and as we try to recover from these devastating fires we need the EPA to be fully funded with all of their employees not
▶ 3:14:28being encouraged to retire not being laid off but we need them on the ground so that people in Los Angeles know if their air is safe to breathe if their water is safe to drink they want to know what's on their soil and that means we need government to work and we also need the economic development and we're going to need to have people have jobs to return to and that includes the JPL scientists it includes people who receive federal funding for biomedical research it includes our hospital employees it includes
▶ 3:14:59all of the science and medical institutions that rely on federal funding so I would just ask my Republican colleagues particularly are it do we have a reason to be meeting here why are we meeting if when we direct funding that funding can be cut by one person or by the executive branch um I think this is a a real uh crisis for this nation
▶ 3:15:29it's certainly a crisis for Los Angeles and I do hope that we can in a bipartisan way push back and assert the powers of that the constitution gives to congress with that I yield thank you thank you very much now I'd like to call on representative mlan Delany from Maryland so uh hello uh so thank you Mr chairman and thank you to our panelists for testifying
▶ 3:15:59I have sat here for 3 hours and 44 minutes because I so I'm one of the most junior members I am part of the freshman in the 119th class am I might be one of the youngest members but I'm probably one of the oldest in terms of experience and having been around for a long time and I love the fact of investment science research education and how they drive Innovation it helps our Workforce Development but it
▶ 3:16:29brings the best of America of when you take research and you take um all of these wonderful things and mix it in a public private way that we lift up and that is really what helps our national security our Economic Security and who we are as Americans Americans so I am thrilled to be here and thank you for for letting me um I uh represent Maryland 6th District that would be Montgomery County and Western Maryland but you know uh Maryland Virginia
▶ 3:17:00DC this region is home to many uh universities but also to nist that is in my district um close to NIH um and uh you know the National Science Foundation as well um I am a big believer in what they've done but um just stepping back I just want to say that um you know nist in particular is one of the most incredible institutions as you know Mr copen I'm going to ask you about this but it's Broad and deep and you know we are
▶ 3:17:30under the First Amendment really Congress was explicitely giving standards weights and measurements in terms of that and this does everything from quantum physics and AI to our standard protocols and it is so important to who we are in terms of innovation um a lot of what I going to say and I'm just going to say briefly is I was a telecom lawyer I was a satellite executive I worked a nonprofit in in Tech but most recently I was at nist I'm I at ntia as Deputy assistant secretary and I dealt a lot with our
▶ 3:18:00standards and worked in terms of AI and how we look at our International standards and I'm going to you know Echo a lot of what our our you know I could say a lot of different things but there's two questions I want to ask to all of you one research is the hardest thing to and it's that got the biggest Roi and you know but a lot of research basic research we've talked about but a lot of the research that is done by our government agencies is so Broad and deep it will never be funded completely
▶ 3:18:31by our private sector and you know so we invest in it and it's capitalized by our our big Partners um I when I was at ntia I had the um privilege of doing over 50 bilaterals around the world um many at the itu in terms of open Rand and Vis Huawei with 5G but also in terms of AI and what I found was that you would have these private sector and then ntia nist State Department Engineers
▶ 3:19:01there but the protocols of the world are being developed there and the Chinese would have hundreds of people and we'd have a small team and the and the companies would come in with a very wedge on a on a specific part that impacted their business but the whole part of the country was not you know done but by our people so my question is in your view in the current state of us competitiveness against China the hu and standard developments um but even more broadly and I'm going to put this out to the whole you
▶ 3:19:31know how do we make sure that we have that that the private sector can stay can stand forward because as you see these hiring freees I'm scared and I want to make sure that we have the ability to fund these quietly n and otherwise what will be the alternative yeah thank you for that question and thank you for your comments as a former resident of Montgomery County I I also really appreciate uh the importance of the uh the DC area the uh the tremendous number of
▶ 3:20:01uh of federal Laboratories and the Partnerships between the public sector uh the private sector um standards are essential for the nation and ensuring that the private sector understands their role in a private sector-led process finding ways also whether it's also through uh through uh the tax credit program through R&D tax credits to ensure uh that there are incentives in place for the private sector to uh to play the role um but things get better
▶ 3:20:31with federal agencies being there and you talk about the role of ntia and and and nist and the others um we see a much more collaborative approach we see a much more responsive approach um and whether there are hundreds of of Chinese repres Representatives at the standards table and only a small handful um we need to get the word out about the importance of uh of this process um I'm pleased Colorado School of Minds uh together with UL will be uh hosting a u
▶ 3:21:02a standards Institute uh that brings together higher education looks to equip how higher education also deploys uh technology standards in their curricula there's so much more that we can say and thank you so much for being part of this effort and just generally I I know I'm almost out of town but just how you think that um you know who will step up and if we don't fund these types of of of government research who will do it I and I'm just to the rest of the panel government has a critical role
▶ 3:21:32we've been talking about uh that this entire time this uh this committee has had a tremendous history of bipartisan collaboration we're excited about the future we know that there are some questions and uh and bumps in the road that we're dealing with right now this committee has a great heritage and and the ability then to uh to allocate funding to ensure that the right things happen for the Science and Technology Enterprise and for National leadership globally is going to be important okay can
▶ 3:22:02I just say something about nist for just 30 seconds Walt LED nist and so he's a small conflict let me just say this he's never worked at nist it is one of the most important agencies in the federal government when I travel around the world Amen the agency that people ask me about is nist and they want they want a nist because they want they understand the value of Standards the power of having standards so um it's such an important agency all right got time Mr can I um I I would love to be able to submit to the record also about um Noah
▶ 3:22:33and um the incredible things it does in um weather research and other things that are not going to be by the priv sector so I will submit something for the record on that and okay turn it back thank you and now uh let's see the representative Riley from New York sorry about that thank you no it's all good thank you Mr chairman how are you guys doing we've been here for like four hours everybody okay I think there's only two of us I was really nervous I was going to be the one person standing between you and the lunch break you need
▶ 3:23:03and then Max came so thanks Max for not making me the bad guy um I'm so excited to be part of this uh committee for a number of reasons Mr chairman I was I was telling him before one of them is uh when we got here and got to do committee assignments I sat down with my top adviser who's my four and a half-year-old uh Patricio and we went through all the Committees and talked about what they all did and I asked him what committees should dad ask to be on and he was adamant that we do the robots and rocket ships committee and here
▶ 3:23:33we are so he's thrilled I'm actually here um because we have got to bring manufacturing back to this country and this is a great place to do that um Dr copen um in my district in Upstate New York over the course of the last generation we have lost tens of thousands of really good manufacturing jobs we've seen plants close uh frankly a lot of that is because a bunch of Washington politicians got us into terrible trade deals that made Wall Street Rich by shipping our jobs
▶ 3:24:04overseas and it's put us at a huge disadvantage it has gutted the middle class and so one of the things I'm most excited to work on on this committee is bringing manufacturing jobs back home we have got to start making stuff in America we've got to start making stuff in Upstate New York like we used to do and not have all this stuff made in China and be dependent on China so big question generally uh from your perspective as a former NIS director how do we do that uh and in particular I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the
▶ 3:24:34various manufacturing uh programs at nist the return on investment from those in Bingington we have uh the alliance for manufacturing and technology which is part of the manufacturing extension uh partnership critically important was hoping you could uh talk to the record a little bit about the value of those programs thank you so much and I'm delighted that you're on this committee and uh and and your passion uh for rebuilding America's manufacturing base um I commented briefly earlier about
▶ 3:25:05uh the importance of making and uh this committee has oversight uh for the manufacturing USA programs uh the um expansion that we've seen recently with uh with several uh new institutes including the one that I was talking about uh where AI digital twin and U manufacturing for the semiconductor sector that critically involves the state of New York absolutely um and and so uh excited about those opportunities
▶ 3:25:35we we know that so much um Innovation is driven by small and medium-sized Enterprises and so um the manufacturing extension partnership I'm so excited um in my current role as uh VP for research and Tech transfer at clorado School of Mines uh to be a close partner to uh to the MEP program and and uh uh supporting not only manufacturers in Colorado but also across the American West um we recognize that programs like the cyber security
▶ 3:26:05uh Cascade that came through the MEP program uh was enabled by the power of that Network and and by the linkage uh with nist it supports National Security because small manufacturers is a key part of the um of the manufacturing supply chain uh for the Space Program uh for the aircraft that we rely upon for for our US military um so ensuring that there's awareness of the linkage
▶ 3:26:36between Science and Technology the importance of the manufacturing sector and the need to bring those uh Innovation streams together um and critically to rebuild the workforce so much of what we need um in our nation is to rebuild manufacturing jobs because they see them as part of their own future they see that as important to their uh local communities um and I'm excited about what you're doing and what this committee is doing to rebuild American manufacturing base
▶ 3:27:06I'm really eager to work with you on that and I I want to follow uh follow up on what you said about the end about the the workforce the manufacturing Workforce and and and Doc Dr President Wilson um first thanks for all your service to our country uh I really appreciated what you said earlier about the importance of inspiring the next generation of scientists and Engineers if we don't do that we can't compete with China we we've got to be able to do that and in your testimony one of the things you mentioned was enhancing pel grants for in demand
▶ 3:27:36uh stem careers I'd love to hear uh more about that and also on the subject of of uh pelg grants and stem I don't think a 2-year or four-year education should be the price of admission to the middle class in this country I have a bunch of ibe the electrical worker locals in my district who are doing incredible work around CTE and apprenticeships and I think we ought to start thinking about using pel grants to support CTE my time's expired um just very briefly and then maybe we could continue the
▶ 3:28:07after very happy to you sir 24% of jobs in America today require some kind of stem knowledge but only half of those require a bachelor's degree so you're absolutely right um that uh that it's it's possible to it's very much possible to do that in Career and Technical education is a part of it I think it may be time for a new National Defense Education Act in ndea 2.0 um and that part of that may be to change some of the incentives with respect to pel
▶ 3:28:38uh and what degrees we're encouraging students to pursue so that we connect College more closely to Opportunities and career I'd love to work with you on that thank you Mr chairman okay you're welcome and last but not least uh Mr Frost from great state of Florida thank you Mr chair lunch is upon you um did you bring it I think I didn't bring it I didn't bring it I'm sorry um well thank you so much for being here everybody um it's so good to be here and uh Madame secretary I am
▶ 3:29:08a former 10year member of the Civil Air Patrol so we love the Air Force um I represent a district that is the hub for modeling and simulation in Orlando Florida right now very proud of what's going on in East Orlando and research part and a lot of the public part public private Partnerships and Partnerships we're seeing with the military and the Army there um and the integration with our students at University Central Florida go nights um I think it's a really great example of the kind of ecosystem we need to build
▶ 3:29:38everywhere around this country to of course remain competitive with our adversaries um but also provide good avenues for all kids all students to be able to do this important work for our national security and to make life better for all Americans um Mr Hammond I wanted to ask you about the factors making it harder uh for America to stay in the lead with science and technology I share your concerns about this kind of apparent slowdown in American innovation um in your opinion how can we best spend public dollars um
▶ 3:30:09uh to how could we best spend public dollars and be smarter on R&D um as it relates to the private thank you for that question if I could give maybe four or five bullet points on what could be done for federal R&D in particular I would say you know prioritize and fund more high-risk proposals that have little or no preliminary data um do less peerreview and more accountable program officers so actually have people who know the subject matter expertise uh triage what what gets funded
▶ 3:30:39um we should greatly reduce reporting requirements in our federal grants which now take up 40% of our our Pi's times and then we should um create new career tracks for uh younger scientists but you know also piggybacking on Congressman Riley's point I think ultimately the manufacturing agenda ties in with our science agenda especially as you look ahead where near-term AI progress could significantly automate a lot of knowledge work you know as a country we've we've bet on as our comparative advantage
▶ 3:31:09we've bet on entertainment Finance Management essentially all the sectors that that are very close to to having AI Alternatives and at the final at the end of the day um the our core Competitive Edge will come from real physical Industries and we need to make it a lot easier to build yeah thank you I mean you know when I look at things like deep seek um of course under the well-known bureaucracy the CCP it it seems like you know they can still match American innovation with
▶ 3:31:40none of the hundreds of billions of dollars that folks like open AI Oracle Microsoft taxpayers to dig deep for um something to keep in mind you highlighted in your testimony how federal spending on science research and development um in absolute and in inflation adjusted terms is at its highest levels but it's actually at a low Point as far as percentage of our GDP is concerned on this committee I think we need to look at redoubling our commitment to scientific research not just in the raw dollar amounts but also
▶ 3:32:10to match what we need to remain competitive um and what's needed to lead um Mr Hammond thinking right now final few minutes about factors challenging our ability to lead in Innovation you point to a research system that punishes uh heterodoxy can you say a little bit more about that and explain what you mean yes yes absolutely you know we we've heard a lot today about um you know concern over uh Grant freezes at NSF and so forth you know much of this literature on this slowdown in science emerged out of the pandemic where we had u a
▶ 3:32:40National Emergency a global emergency where um NIH grants were critical to supporting new new treatments and in many cases took 9 12 months to actually come through in some cases were rejected because they used the wrong font um and that Gap had to be filled by uh private philanthropy and and and really coming out of the pandemic we should have looked back on our science programs and said why did they fail and try to draw a distinction between science and science programs the same way that we distinguish between a housing program and someone actually having a house to live in or education
▶ 3:33:10program and actual education outcomes um until we make that distinction we're going to really be chasing uh red herrings thank you um Dr Peri you know Mr Hammond has said that young academics U basically get you know can be punished for thinking outside the box how can we better encourage diversity of thought in Science and Tech research diversity of thought's critical to science and we have to know that most of the things that we say today are probably wrong uh that's just the way science has always worked that said um I think it is actually
▶ 3:33:41um it I don't want to overstate the case because I will tell you that I'm the executive public of Science magazine and you know the shest way to get into science is to say something that was wrong that was really important to all of us um it has to be backed up by incredible by incredible data um but that is the shest way to get into science I don't want to overstate I don't want to overstate that that problem um the other thing that we can do is make sure that culture of uh of seeking truth is is there um and there is nothing there's nothing I think that is that should be a disagreement
▶ 3:34:11for anybody uh in this room that we should be seeking truth that is what that is what the Sciences are about and that we have a process that even when we have our own political leanings because everybody does but we have a process that puts forth data you look at it uh you you you you argue about it and we argue you know we argue about things publicly like covid but then we argue about things privately like uh uh superconductivity the people aren even watching those arguments but boy they are they are pretty rough uh
▶ 3:34:41you know they're happening behind the scenes we want to continue to make sure that happens the scientific uh in the scientific culture and I think it is I don't want to overstate that that's that that's in some way happening thank you so much I yeld back yes sir thank you I would also like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the quantum industry Coalition and so uh let it be so ordered thank you now we have uh one last I said last but not least I want to go but we've got
▶ 3:35:12we've got Mr Nick bage from Alaska for five minutes thank you Mr chairman and uh thank you to uh those who are testifying today for your patience as as it seems like you're going to end and then we just keep going but uh I'm glad to say that I am the last among a long line of uh distinguished colleagues and I really appreciate uh the comments uh just made uh by Mr Frost and uh those here about diversity of thought so important to
▶ 3:35:42the scientific method and process that we challenge Orthodoxy that we come back to the table with new ideas because that's how we advance the ball forward for everybody um first question I have uh and I'll have two quick questions that that kind of deal with futurism so may be a nice place to end the hearing today um so first for U Mr Hammond on the subject of Ip protection is it realistic to believe that in an AI mature and fully integrated
▶ 3:36:13environment that IP protection controls will be sufficient or even possible yes that is a great question um I I think we have to assume that they won't be uh even if they may be we have to assume that they won't be um there's different ways to have a mode one of them is to have a legal thing called a patent another way is to have uh to innovate much faster than anyone can copy you a third way is to have a robust ecosystem of Workforce and actual talent you know um I'm sure China has every single Boeing
▶ 3:36:43blueprint for their airplanes and yet they're still struggling to build a widebody airplane and that's because that's not contained in the patent that's contained in the actual Workforce and the and the expertise that's a great answer I appreciate that um second question uh for Dr Peri we have convergent J Curves in large language models uh in agentic AI in advanced robotics uh how do we expect um this disruptive convergence to
▶ 3:37:13change stem is there a way to get ahead of this how do we do it and after you're complete if others want to weigh in on that as well uh to me it actually highlights something that we should be teaching more of in The Sciences anyway which is the question matters more than the answer um how you ask the question uh what you how you specify it that actually matters much much more when you have a polymath in your pocket um and so because you don't need to figure out the way to do it that that'll get figured out and so that's
▶ 3:37:43the most important thing in terms of if you you're going to have all these Technologies let's make sure that we understand what the right are if I can just uh add to that I think it's so uh important as we look at the future of Education um it's the intersections that also matter um uh having grounded scientific technological engineering disciplines is fabulous but the future um is at these interfaces and uh and the the enabling power
▶ 3:38:13of the tools helping our uh our civilization uh our American citizens to to embrace these new tools for the future rather than fearing them and to see those as essential parts of American competitiveness what they said that's great well I'll tell you what um great answers appreciate your input and uh I yield the balance of my time thank you
▶ 3:38:44thank you very much uh I want to thank our illustrious Witnesses for your valuable testimony today each and every one of you we we've gotten a lot this has been a very long uh hearing today but we've learned quite a bit and I just want to thank you for each of your careers what you brought today and uh just wish you the very best safe travels the record uh also want to thank our our members I think I'm the only one left in here except for Mr begic uh the record will remain
▶ 3:39:14open for 10 days for additional comments and written questions from the members and so with that this hearing is
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