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▶ 0:07:45the sub committee on energy will come to order with that objection the chair is authorized to declare recesses of the subcommittee at any time welcome to today's hearing entitled from transformative science to technological breakthroughs Doe National Laboratories I recognize myself for 5 minutes for an opening statement so good morning y'all today the energy subcommittee will be examining the US Department of Energy's National Laboratories and their role in advancing scientific discoveries
▶ 0:08:15as well as developing Innovative Technologies our discussion will explore several topics including research security Doe's World leading user facilities as well as emerging technology since its early formation in World War II the National Laboratories have consistently been at the Forefront of scientific achievement as the largest Federal recipient of basic research funding in the physical sciences the National Labs and their 28
▶ 0:08:46user facilities have taken on the most fundamental challenges in the fields of computer science high energy physics Fusion Energy as well as Material Science despite these challenges the Labs have made significant scientific breakthroughs which include sequencing the first human genome mapping the universe achieving Fusion ignition and discovering 22 of the elements on the periodic table these achievements Have Been instrumental
▶ 0:09:16to us technological leadership creating new Industries as well as products in tandem through public private Partnerships the National Labs play a major role in Transforming Our energy sector for instance the national energy technology lab known as nettle worked with industry to develop hydraulic fracturing technology before its widespread use in the late 2000s the United States was actually in a dire energy State relying on foreign powers to
▶ 0:09:46supply natural gas as a result the US built LG terminals including one in Freeport Texas my district to import trillions of cubic feet of natural gas due to nettle collaborative work with industry however the United States repurposed these same terminals to export to export LNG to our allies while reducing the cost of energy at home this showcases the importance of public private Partnerships
▶ 0:10:17and their ability to ensure our national security and our Independence likewise the National Laboratories are involved in the development of Next Generation energy techn tech for examples such as advanced nuclear energy for over the last 20 years researchers at Oak Ridge and Idaho National Labs have made significant improvements to tof fuel which is a fabricated fuel using Gen 4 reactors partly due to the lab's work Trio
▶ 0:10:47fuel has been adopted by some of the leading Advanced reactor companies including X energy a recipient of the advanced reactor demonstration program X energy plans to use this fabricated fuel for its x 100 reactor which will provide Power and heat to dal's industrial production facility in sea drift Texas just south of my district moreover the labs um moreover the labs work in fabricated fuels along with their
▶ 0:11:17ability to supply Supply Halo which bring forth a new nuclear Renaissance with our focus on National Laboratories I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the chips and science act back in the 117 Congress I as the sub energy subcommittee ranking member along with the house science committee members worked across the aisle to produce the department of energy science for the future act which included my bill the Computing advancements for Material Science cams act this
▶ 0:11:47large comprehensive house product ultimately became the basic text to the chips as well as the science act which reauthorized the office of science's basic resar research programs authorized upgrades and experimental facilities such as the electron ion collider at Brook Haven National Laboratory and directed doe to implement new research security provisions despite the wide set support for this bill Congress has yet to
▶ 0:12:18appropriate to the levels authorized in the chips and science act this failure is partly due to the Biden's administration prioritization of new and untested demonstration and deployment while the iig and the IRA invested close to 100 billion for over 70 new programs the office of Science and its Labs received only two billion which is a poultry 2% of funding outside of the traditional appropriation process
▶ 0:12:48this doesn't include the Biden's ad Biden administration's risky loan office which doled out tens of billions to its political connected clean energy friends 2017 I led a joint subcommittee hearing titled quote Risky Business the doe loan guarantee program end quote where I highlighted in my opening statement that the Ivon P solar project would come at the cost of the rate payers if the pro quote if the project fails and goes into default end quote
▶ 0:13:19with the recent Announcement by pg& ending its relationship with Ivon Paul Ivan Paul it seems that my prediction was correct it has looks like it's coming true whever I hope that the Trump Administration will work with Congress to fully fund the basic science programs at levels consistent with chips and Science and rep prioritize the department to focus on basic research and its labs this will ensure us competitiveness and technological
▶ 0:13:49prowess in the 21st century I'd like to thank and Advance our witness today for your testimony and I look forward to our conversation here today I now recognize the r ing member of the representative North Carolina for her opening statement well good morning and thank you so much to Chairman Weber for convening this hearing today to discuss the importance of the National Laboratory Network to preserving our nation's Leading Edge in science and developing the Energy Solutions
▶ 0:14:20and Workforce of tomorrow I want to thank our distinguished Witnesses for being here to share your testimony and insights on this topic as a nation we have entered a pivotal stage we where we have not one but several emerging Clean Energy Technologies that have the potential to reshape and improve our economy we have advanced and modular nuclear demonstration reactors being designed and built
▶ 0:14:50right now that when completed will give investors the confidence they need to make the them the backbone of our electrical grid and improve reliability we have Fusion right representative La grin the Holy Grail of energy making strides in um in defining in in being able to be realized in years rather than decades we have energy storage Technologies making leaps
▶ 0:15:20in performance and safety which when paired with new smart grid technologies will make intermittency concerns with renewable energy a thing of the past these Energy Technologies are poised not only to decarbonize the electrical grid but to make it more resilient reliable and secure in times of climate disasters in my home state of North Carolina where are seeing hurricanes becoming increasingly
▶ 0:15:51stronger in the wake of climate change and we need our grid infrastructure to improve according accordingly and clearly we have also seen this in Texas California and throughout our country we also need to cons continue to support Partnerships that share Advanced Computing resources between the National Laboratories and Noah that will enable more accurate forecasting of weather and climate events allowing First Responders
▶ 0:16:21to prepare ahead of time and potentially save lives and property and as I've come to understand at the Forefront of all of these Technologies and Partnerships is the Department of Energy's National Laboratory Network I'm looking forward to hearing from our expert Witnesses on the valuable work the National Laboratories are doing how they are improving the security of our communities and what Congress can do to support their work
▶ 0:16:52that said I'm also deeply concerned about the impact of the administration's blanketfree on federal funding provided by the bipartisan infrastructure law in flagrant violation of several recent court orders it is undermining the ability of these labs in partnership with the private sector to strengthen our grid and prevent future severe impacts on our communities so I'll be digging into that as well
▶ 0:17:23now Mr chairman I want to ask unanimous consent to wave on to the committee representative Bill Foster for the purpose of asking questions of the witnesses during this hearing that objection so ordered thank you Mr chairman and I yield back thank you ranking member Ross uh with that objection chairman badman's opening statement will be included in the record I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee for a statement well thank
▶ 0:17:53you uh and good morning chairman Weber and ranking member Ross and thank you to the witnesses who got here through a snowstorm we appreciate the effort that you've taken to be here today um the department of energy as we know oversees 17 worldclass National Labor Laboratories and an array of programs focused on ensuring us leadership uh in clean energy industries of the future and keeping our nation on the Forefront of scientific discovery the
▶ 0:18:23department also has the solemn responsibility of stewarding and ensuring the reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile often for broad bipartisan hearings like this where a major focus is on introducing our committee's many new members to the full range of exciting facilities and projects that the department oversees here is where I'd pivot to a favorite subject of mine that the ranking member just referenced and that's Fusion Energy uh we'll certainly get to that uh and I'm very
▶ 0:18:53appreciative that we have the director from Lawrence Livermore national uh lab with the ni facility here today I'm deeply Disturbed I will say by the actions of the current Administration and its severe impacts on the entire research Enterprise including National Labs funds appropriated by Congress to accelerate the development and deployment of a broad range of technologies have been arbitrarily and indefinitely Frozen and the new director
▶ 0:19:23of the white house uh Office of Management and budget has threatened to make a large portion of these so-called pauses permanent by violating the empowerment Control Act of 1974 and even more alarmingly the power of the purse vested to Congress in article one of the US Constitution I'm also concerned about the uh assault on diversity in science uh I remember last year's chairman of the committee
▶ 0:19:53uh in in response to an amendment about broadening the scope saying those good old Boys in rural Oklahoma never get a chance to compete we can't leave behind any bright mind in America and it's worth uh remembering that not everybody has the same level of wealth and access to get in and compete this is all about competition and Merit and opportunity lastly I want to say that it is really unconscionable that the critical missions of the Department of energy
▶ 0:20:24could now be catastrophically undermined by an ill-informed unelected billionaire in his deeply inexperienced minions we know that the new Secretary of Energy personally granted access to Doe's it system to Personnel associated with the so-called Department of government efficiency or doggy over the objections of Doe's own offices of general counsel and the Chief Information officer they objected in part because a 23-year-old member of doggy had not undergone
▶ 0:20:54the standard background check normally required to gain access to the this highly sensitive data the risk is further heightened due to the enormous Financial conflicts of interest that Mr musk as CEO of Tesla has with doe this is why ranking members Deborah Ross Emilia Sykes and I recently sent a letter to the secretary requesting a full account of doggy's activities at the department and the specific access that have been provided to proprietary as well as classified data
▶ 0:21:25this breach is all the more ging given that Tesla itself received a $465 million loan from the doe Loan program office in 2010 that played a crucial role in the company's rise as a global leader in electric vehicles there appears to be no end to the hypocrisy that these folks are willing to engage in all this said I recognize that the witnesses before us today are certainly not responsible for the radical actions of this new Administration even if they have been forced to address and mitigate
▶ 0:21:55their qu consequences as best they can so I truly look forward to this discussion to better understand these impacts and to chart a better path forward for our country's best and brightest Minds I look forward to hearing uh from the panel about recent advancements in Fusion industry I do want to celebrate that this committee has always operated in a bipartisan manner that goes back decades and I'm cheered by chairman Weber's uh call that the science and chips and science be fully
▶ 0:22:25funded up to the authorized level that is an important statement Mr chairman and with that I yield back thank you ranking member lkin I now introduce our Witnesses our first witness today is Dr John Wagner the director of Idaho National Laboratory our next witness is Dr Tom Mason the director at Los Alamos National Laboratory our third witness is Dr Paul Kars the director at argon National Laboratory and our final and someone argue best witness is Dr
▶ 0:22:56Kimberly budell the director at Lawrence liver for National Laboratory I now recognize Dr Wagner for 5 minutes thank you chairman Weber uh subc Community ranking member Ross and uh ranking member lkin uh it's a pleasure to be here thank you for having me in this discussion today my name is John Wagner I'm the director at the Idaho National Laboratory the nation's Center for nuclear energy research and development I also serve as the chair of the national directors um National Laboratory directors Council
▶ 0:23:27I consider it to be a true honor uh to be a part of a system tasked with finding solutions to our nation's greatest energy and security challenges on a personal note my first professional experiences as a college student was during internships in the summertime uh at Oakridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos Laboratory these experiences opened my eyes to amazing possibilities and have had a profound impact on my career and on my life after beginning in the
▶ 0:23:57private sector I worked at ochre National Laboratory for nearly 17 years uh before my passions for nuclear energy brought me to Idaho in 2016 as a chief scientist of the materials and fuels complex and later became lab director in 2020 as Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently wrote du's R&D Enterprise is the Envy of the world originating during the Manhattan Project our National Labs have achieved breakthroughs that have literally changed the path of human history and ensured American Scientific and Technical
▶ 0:24:27leadership Mastery of today's new technologies is vital for our future Global Leadership we must as a nation understand and be first in finding answers to questions that will determine how future Generations live questions such as how do we leverage our abundant energy resources for our power prosperity how do we innovate to ensure durable stable energy dominance through fision fusion and other Technologies how do we harness AI
▶ 0:24:57exoscale Computing Quantum Computing to provide breakthroughs and solutions to benefit American people and American industry how do we ensure domestic production of strategic and critical minerals and materials to to secure our supply chain how do we secure our grid and other critical infrastructure for the reliable delivery of of necessary energy and water and how do we ensure US National Security at home and abroad the experts at our National Laboratories are hard at work finding
▶ 0:25:27these Solutions solutions to these pressing challenges at the same time they're constantly looking ahead over the horizon to be prepared for challenges our Labs design and operate unique facilities and unparalleled scientific instruments that enable a greater understanding of the origin of the universe fundamental properties of materials behaviors of biological systems and development and delivery of pharmaceuticals and so much more within the doe National Laboratory system there are three
▶ 0:25:57applied energy Laboratories Idaho National Laboratory is one of them also the national energy technology laboratory and the national renewable energy laboratory these Applied Energy Laboratories working together play a crucial role in driving energy Innovation for the nation at inl we have made historic contributions to our nation's energy and National Security notable achievements include first demonstration of nuclear power which now provides nearly 10% of the electricity around the world and nearly 20%
▶ 0:26:28of the US electricity and also in the development of nuclear propulsion which has played a key role in establishing US Naval military dominance today inl is helping maintain and extend the lives of America's nuclear reactor Fleet while working with industry to demonstrate and deploy the next generation of nuclear power longtime nuclear leaders like Westinghouse General Electric htech Southern Company and a long list have joined with a growing number of nuclear clear
▶ 0:26:58startups like terop power x energy OKO chyros radiant lightbridge and many others sorry I'm not going to be able to mention all of them collaborating with the laboratories on Innovative reactor designs fuel development and Associated Technologies to address an expanding completion or expanding variety of energy use cases our Advanced reactor test beds are nearing completion and in the next few years will enable multiple private sector reactor demonstrations drisking these techn Oles
▶ 0:27:28to support commercial adoption and deployment we see an example of this as us-based Refinery and chemical production companies are funding engineering evaluations for power Steam Heat and hydrogen production from existing nuclear power plants as well as advanced reactors in support of these emerging Technologies us-based Bloom Energy Fuel Cell Energy General Electric and others are using the capabilities at Idaho National Laboratory to demonstrate high temperature electrolysis to produce hydrogen and
▶ 0:27:59oxygen but every doe lab has exciting stories to tell stories of harnessing research and development for the benefit of the American people and our Industries I believe that our 17 National laborator is a primary differenc maker our nation's Ace in the Hole if you will that will enable us to win the competition between nations enhance our standing as a world leader in energy and technological innovation and ensure our economic prosperity in closing I appreciate very
▶ 0:28:29much the opportunity to be a part of this discussion and I look forward to your questions thank you sir Dr Mason you recognized for five minutes chairman Weber ranking member Ross and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify I'm Tom Mason the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory for more than 80 years our lab which is one of the 17 uh doe National Labs has played a critical role in advancing scientific discovery technology development that strengthens US security economic
▶ 0:28:59competitiveness and energy leadership today I will focus on three key areas National Security challenges in a rapidly evolving world the role of artificial intelligence in defense and scientific advancement and the need for infrastructure investment to sustain Innovation over the past 30 plus years the geopolitical landcap landscape has shifted from a bipolar Cold War structure to a post-cold war environment where the US was the sole superpower
▶ 0:29:29to the tripolar dynamic we see today with us China and Russia compounded by independent and surrogate actors this has created new challenges that demands technological innovation to maintain strategic stability a critical component of National Security is energy security the US must invest in nuclear power as a stable energy source that reduces Reliance on foreign Supply chains and L Almos is at the Forefront of advancing reactor Technologies in partnership with Idaho
▶ 0:30:00and fuel innovations that can support both National Security and economic growth today however in many areas private sector investment in R&D is exceeding government investment and that requires the labs to strengthen public private Partnerships to ensure that advancements align with national interests probably artificial intelligence is the best illustration of this Dynamic from a national security perspective artificial intelligence is transforming Global power dynamics
▶ 0:30:30faster than any other technology while the US leads in areas of AI development this lead is narrowing as China increases government investment in Aid driven defense and surveillance systems which have the potential to undermine our Legacy deterrent AI is a force multiplier for National Security and Los Alamos is leveraging artificial intelligence to improve weapon simulations to enhance deterrence to strengthen cyber security against emerging threats and optimize
▶ 0:31:01defense Supply chains to ensure resilience however our current AI efforts are not operating at the necessary scale a national AI initiative is needed to apply the most advanced AI tools to National Security challenges to invest in classified AI infrastructure and high performance Computing and to maintain us leadership in AI driven strategies the nation that first scale AI for National Security will shape global stability
▶ 0:31:31for decades turning now to infrastructure uh regrettably aging research infrastructure does threaten Innovation at Los Almos many of our facilities essential for National Security are outdated and in urgent need of recapitalization the Los Almos Neutron Science Center or Lance is vital for nuclear certification as well as medical isotope production and it's more than 50 years old requires modernization to maintain reliability
▶ 0:32:01the Lance modernization project which was recently approved uh for critical decision zero Mission need is crucial for restoring full capability similarly our explosive research complex which supports National Defense and War fighter safety faces structural deficiencies that hinder critical research these facilities must be updated to sustain scientific and Innovation the data from our experimental fa facilities is the raw material for training artificial intelligence
▶ 0:32:31so investing in modern infrastructure is not just a scientific priority it's a national security imperative rapid technological advancements have also made technological surprise a growing concern unlike past areas where research could be tightly controlled Ai and emerging Technologies are advancing often in open- Source environments making them more difficult to monitor to counter these risks the US must develop CL classified AI test beds at the National Labs to assess emerging
▶ 0:33:02Technologies leverage Aid driven intelligence to track adversarial advancements and strengthen our collaboration with allies to maintain a strategic Edge the best way to prevent technological surprise is to lead in Innovation and deployment we must get there first because Private Industry leads in Ai and Quantum Computing and other disruptive Technologies uh the National Labs must collaborate closely with industry to accelerate advancements and ensure they align
▶ 0:33:32with our public uh needs Los Alamos we've already partnered with leaders like open Ai and Nvidia and can leverage the success of Doe's recently successfully concluded exoscale Computing project to integrate AI into National Security applications expanding these collaborations will accelerate scientific breakthroughs in National Security applications it will ensure that us AI models Drive Innovation rather than foreign competitors and it will keep us at
▶ 0:34:02the Forefront of technological leadership across a broad range of scientific and Engineering disciplines strong Partnerships between National Labs and Private Industry will drive American leadership and science technology and defense to ensure the US Remains the global leader in science security we must take decisive action in three areas launching a national AI initiative to maintain us leadership and Aid driven security investing in modern scientific infrastructure to sustain Innovation and expand
▶ 0:34:32public private Partnerships to accelerate technology development this committee plays a pivotal role in ensuring the US does not fall behind I urge you to support these investments in science technology and National Security to secure our future thank you Mr chairman I look forward to your questions thank you sir Dr Kars you're not recognized for I guess five minutes chairman Weber ranking members Ross and Lofgren members of the subcommittee uh thank you really for the opportunity to appear before you today
▶ 0:35:03it's my honor to discuss the department of Energy's National Laboratories and the drive to Innovation and science at scale which underpins the economy and our national security I am Paul CS I'm a director of argon National Laboratory which is stewarded by the department of Energy's office of science the largest funer of physical sciences across the federal government from advancing discoveries in Material Science Biology high energy physics nuclear research to driving Innovations in Fusion Energy isotope production and computational science
▶ 0:35:33the office of science fuels research that spans all 17 of the National Laboratories engaging engages over 300 universities and Higher Learning institutions and impacts every state in the Union um Plus Puerto Rico in Washington DC the office of science National Laboratories featuring feature Leading Edge scientific facilities that are essential to The Innovation ecosystem they provide critical scientific capabilities that Propel Discovery and American innovation through Partnerships with industry and
▶ 0:36:03Academia these facilities Empower multidisiplinary teams to advance bold and Innovative scientific and technological Endeavors they are also instrumental and attracting and retaining a talented Workforce vital for Argon success and they offer staff opportunities to pursue meaningful careers working on matters of global scale and consequence last year was a transformational year at argon where we completed the upgrade of two of the office of science facilities the advanced Photon source which provides buyant high energy
▶ 0:36:34x-rays that researchers used to study complex materials and systems nrr one of the nation's first exis scale supercomputers capable of performing a billion billion calculations per second these facilities are complex engineering marveles the 815 million doll upgrade to the advanced Photon Source replaced the facility's 30-year-old electron storage rink 1 km in circumference with the state-of-the-art machine increasing X-ray and uh brightness by up to 500
▶ 0:37:04times Aurora joins Frontier at Oak Ridge in El Capitan at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as the three fastest supercomputers in the world these supercomputers dramatically accelerate research cosmological simulations that took years can now be done in months and months of drug Discovery are now reduced to days last year's Nobel Prize award in chemistry was a testament to the important contributions of the office of science facilities they're making to break through fundamental science the light
▶ 0:37:34sources at argon Brookhaven Lord's Berkeley and slack National Laboratories identified a third of the 180,000 protein structures in the protein Data Bank that three Nobel laurates trained AI models on to successfully predict the three-dimensional shape of proteins knowing the three-dimensional shape of proteins is essential uh to designing new drugs because it is the protein shape that defines which and how other molecules will bind to it this achievement has been
▶ 0:38:05heralded as the perhaps the very first time AI has significantly Advanced the frontiers of Humanity's scientific knowledge and will make a significant contribution to the development of a vast new set of drug candidates for cancer and other diseases to continue Nobel level scientific contributions we must reinvest in laboratory infrastructure and Facilities that drive Discovery Innovation and development of the industries of Tomorrow the facility's capabilities and Resident
▶ 0:38:35uh expertise resident in the National Laboratories are vital to expanding America's leadership in critical and emerging Technologies such as artificial intelligence Quantum information science and microelectronics and to establishing the us as the pace header in the race of Nations VI for Supremacy in science and technology adversaries like China are making significant Investments in these industries our technological edge of today is not guaranteed to maintain us leadership and best position
▶ 0:39:05ourselves in this evolving geopolitical landscape we must lean into our core strength in research and development leverage our unique scientific assets and bolster our Partnerships one of the most significant roles of the the National Laboratories is their ability to develop strategic Partnerships with industry and Academia and to convene stakeholders to address complex challenges and opportunities I could cite many examples but a few that come to mind for me are argon Le collaboration with the Greater Houston partnership
▶ 0:39:36which is working with regional companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobile uh bringing in the laboratory's expertise in advanced manufacturing and life cycle analysis to really help the opportunities and the challenges uh such as uh those associate with lowc carbon systems for based chemicals we're also working with industry leaders that uh John mentioned earlier oako and ter power using argon's deep capabilities in advanced reactor Technologies and the nuclear fuel cycle really to accelerate the commercialization of Next Generation Technologies
▶ 0:40:06our country stands at a pivotal moment Innovations of today will see transformational breakthroughs that will enable our future Prosperity now is not the time to hold back with renewed investments in the infrastructure and expertise of the Laboratories the US can contribute to lead in emerging Technologies such as AI Quantum Computing and and advanced manufacturing by accelerating and scaling our fundamental R&D infrastructure and strategic Partnerships the US can secure its
▶ 0:40:37position as Global Science and Technology leaders of the future thank you for your continued support and the opportunity to testify today I do look forward to the questions as well thank you thank you sir Dr is it budil or Buell Buell Dr Buell you recognized for oh five minutes thank you uh chairman Weber ranking members Ross and Lofgren members of the subcommittee good morning and thank you for having me here today I'm honored to speak to you on behalf of Laurence Livermore National Laboratory
▶ 0:41:07a doe National nuclear Security Administration lab and proud member of the Doe's network of National Labs more than three decades ago I arrived at Livermore as a physics graduate student seeking to do Cutting Edge Laser experiments for my research what followed was a remarkable opportunity to become part of an amazing multi-disciplinary team dedicated to pursuing worldclass Science and Technology to advance US National Security and global stability that commitment to service to the nation is what animates our exceptional Workforce of nearly 9,000 employees and
▶ 0:41:37inspires me every day today we find ourselves at a critical time in history with an evolving Global Security environment that presents unprecedented challenges sustaining us leadership in this complex World requires a new approach speed and Innovation must be our focus a sentiment reinforced by our new Secretary of Energy we must become more agile and adaptable not only through S&T Innovation but also through taking bold well-considered technical risks seizing opportunities and streamlining business
▶ 0:42:08practices this is also a strategic moment for nnsa and its National Security Laboratories the need to modernize the nuclear deterrent is urgent we Face many challenges particularly in aging and inadequate infrastructure but it's also an opportunity to use our powerful S&T tools to go faster develop new materials Pioneer new manufacturing approaches reimagine the designed to production life cycle and deliver new capabilities to meet emerging needs modernization efforts are underway and we're building
▶ 0:42:38strong Partnerships across nnsa and with Partners in the other labs and in Industry to introduce Innovative Technologies we proposed to create a complex at Lawrence Livermore called Viper where Advanced Materials and Manufacturing methods will be developed prototype scaled up and quickly transferred to Industry partners two of nsa's Flagship and World leading capabilities are located at Lawrence Livermore the recently dedicated L Capitan supercomputer uh which debuted at number one
▶ 0:43:08on the top 500 list and the national ignition facility both exemplify the importance of sustained multi-year Congressional support for investing in the core competencies and capabilities of the National Laboratories ELC Capitan is a remarkable machine it provides a 20-fold increase over our last computer and is made even more powerful when coupled with AI and machine learning uh it's ideal for our modeling and simulation efforts but it also has 44,000 gpus making it an ideal machine for AI
▶ 0:43:39investigations with strong industry Partnerships and continued support we're poised to take full advantage of this rapidly evolving field to accelerate both product delivery and scientific discovery achievement of fusion ignition and energy gain at nif in December of 2022 was a historic event 60 years in the making this success was only possible with that sustained Support over decades but Fusion ignition is not an end point it's the beginning of our pursuit of high yield for nuclear deterrence energy security
▶ 0:44:09and scientific discovery and continued investment will be critical to Our Success going forward after 15 years of service and more than 4,500 experiments the national ignition facility urgently refurbishment ni sustainment which is now underway as an essential investment along with the enhanced yield capability project which was recently granted uh critical decision zero or Mission need by nnsa to increase ni's laser energy a critical step toward a future
▶ 0:44:39high yield facility as we learned in the pursuit of ignition a little bit of energy goes a long way in these experiments as a national security laboratory Livermore contributes to a wide range of important missions for other agencies biod defense research to accelerate development of medical counter counter measures Partnerships with other labs and with industry to computationally design new cancer Therapeutics novel laser research laying the foundations for Next Generation microchips or the next generation of euv
▶ 0:45:10lithography developed at the labs and developing novel Optics to create a new class of space-based platforms these and other projects truly exemplify our motto Science and Technology on a mission thank you again for offering me the opportunity to share how livermore's multi-discipline Workforce is contributing to US security scientific advancement and Global technological leadership and thank you for your continued support for our important work I look forward to today's discussion
▶ 0:45:41I thank the witnesses for their testimony I now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning this will be a question for each of you uh last month president Trump signed an executive order unleashing American Energy which pauses funding allocated through the IRA in I ja on January 27th OMB released a memo to temporarily pause new Awards dispersements of federal funds under all open Awards and open notices of funding opportunities although two district
▶ 0:46:11court judges issue temporary restraining orders would any of your Labs have been impacted by the EO or memo if implemented as it specifically relates to do related work before you answer to be clear I'm not asking about lab related work from other agencies or departments Dr Wagner will start with you follow following some time to implement we have not been impacted short and sweet Dr
▶ 0:46:42Mason yeah we we uh if you're excluding other agencies then the impacts are rather limited we've identified $200,000 of current funding and uh there is some additional funding that was in the pipeline award that's not yet been received that could potentially be impacted in the future okay Dr cerns um impacts at argon are more severe about $37 million in research activities have been uh suspended or put on hold
▶ 0:47:13uh that uh represents the work of some 140 staff not all our staffs are fully funded by the activity so it equates to about 40 uh fdes thank you Dr buale so we had one project funded under the infrastructure investment and jobs act uh supporting grid resiliency activities so this is a $7 million project uh where the funds were unallocated on January 28th thank you and Dr Wagner I'm going to come back to you under the nuclear fuel Security Act
▶ 0:47:43Congress mandated that Doe provide developers of advanced nuclear reactors no less than three metric tons of Halo by September 30th 2024 today is February the 12th 2025 and my understanding is the doe has not released a single kilogram of Halo is that correct I would really defer to the Department of energy to answer that question uh but I think it's I think it's probably correct Dr Mason you think that's correct
▶ 0:48:14um we have a partnership with chyros that's um looking at that Halo Fe and I have not yet heard from cyos whether or not they have had an impact on their plan Supply Dr Cur you I don't have any additional information Dr bu no okay nothing additional um X energy an ardp recipient is building its xe100 reactor at Dallas facility in cedri Texas which is roughly
▶ 0:48:44probably I don't know 100 150 miles south of my district so my question for each of you is how important is Halo to the success of the ardp and Gen 4 reactors broadly I'm going to in Reverse Dr bu Alo start with you I'm probably not the right expert to answer the question uh since we have very limited involvement with uh nuclear Vision we'll go back this way Dr CN yes um halou is certainly important really to the development
▶ 0:49:14of advanced reactors so many of the vendors that we're working with do have plans to power the reactors use in Halo so critically important Dr Mason as I mentioned um we we have an activity with chyos which is one of the SMR startup companies and um the particulars of that involve the fabrication of the trio Halo fuel that would be used for their very first uh test reactor that's being
▶ 0:49:44built in Oak Ridge um they have uh built a fabrication facility in Albuquerque adjacent to Kirtland Air Force Base where they've been prototyping the fabrication of these Trio pellets um but in order to work with Halo which is necessary for their reactor design which involves triop pellets and molten salt coolant um they needed a facility that could handle that sort of material and actually at Las alos we have the capability to work with special
▶ 0:50:14nuclear material it's not our intention to get into the fuel fabrication business long term but it helps solve the chicken and egg problem which is critical to this technology but you are sounds like you are confident they're going to be able to get this done yes it's a it's a very promising thing and and and once the technology has been demonstrated in the test reactor uh then I think a commercial Supply would be stood up to supply the ongoing needs so we're just helping the transition to reality Dr Wagner you concur
▶ 0:50:45with that um yes I concur with that I just say that the high high assu or Halo is essential to almost all of the advanced reactor Concepts the supply of that material is incredibly important and the timely supply of that material is important uh we are working with the Department of energy they are working to uh make a material available at Idaho National Laboratory we do have some stocks of high uh that we are working with the Department to make available to private sector companies uh chyros OKO
▶ 0:51:15and many others okay thank you for that I now recognize ranking member Ross for her for her questions thank you Mr chairman um as you all heard in my opening statement resilience and reliability is a key priority I think not just of mine and North Carolina but this entire country and so I'd like to ask a few more questions Dr budell about the $7 million um that you have yet to receive um my understanding is that that was
▶ 0:51:45in partnership with the private sector to support a project focused on uh reliability and resilience I'd love to hear more about the project and it's status and whether you've been given any explanation for why um it's the funding ceased thank you for the question uh so the project involves utilization of a special laboratory we have at Lawrence Livermore called Skyfall Skyfall is a cyber physical test bed
▶ 0:52:15so we can use our high performance Computing to run models of the grid operating and then put real Hardware from grid systems in line with those models and that's a way for us to uh run scenarios where there might be a Cyber attack um or other um operat operational upsets and understand how the equipment will respond to that so this is a really uh important partnership for us working with utilities and private sector companies so that they can understand in a real world environment how their different
▶ 0:52:45types of Technology they're introducing into the grid will operate in that system so I think this is critically important work it's a great partnership between us and the private sector uh and it really does give them access to a you know a different capability because of this high performance Computing backbone where we can put a very realistic scenario together um it's also a place where we train a great deal of Workforce on questions like cyber resiliency so we run a cyber program where we bring in teams of
▶ 0:53:16students and uh teach them about cyber security of complex systems like the grid uh and they actually do an exercise where they work to uh ethical hackers uh to take the system down we have a a little town that we've built that they uh do team challenges against so this is a way for them to gain Real World Experience most of these students don't come from computer science background so this is really their first experience of cyber security so that Nexus of uh real
▶ 0:53:46Hardware large scale models of grid and an understanding of the threat space and then the workforce training pipeline I think are all critical to ensuring the next generation of Technologies are de employed securely well I think you're going to love a bill that we got through with bipartisan support on the house side the last time that deals with more funding for cyber security in doe um and we're going to reintroduce it um I also understand that Livermore had a partnership with the state department to focus on
▶ 0:54:16Cooperative threat reduction and this ongoing effort has just been terminated by the new Administration could you give us any more details on that so this is about 1 million effort as part of a program through Brook Haven National Labs non-proliferation and National Security Department to do Cooperative threat reduction work where we have a long Legacy uh doing things like capacity building uh international support for things like nuclear forensics and understanding you know how to H manage interdicted nuclear materials should they be
▶ 0:54:47uh arise it's about a million doll project and as as far as I know to date it's paused uh we don't know if it will be restarted at a later time well hopefully we can um work on both of those things in a bipartisan way um several of you have talked about the importance of AI for our energy leadership and um I don't know who would be the best person to answer this question we only have a minute left but can you describe how meeting
▶ 0:55:17the demand for critical AI infrastructure can help support both the scientific Enterprise and the public interest maybe Dr Mason first since you emphasized AI in your response yeah Ai and electricity go together for sure um and in fact the AI demands are are kind of Basel load demand it's always on you always need to be running and so that has implications in terms of the type of electrical supply um but
▶ 0:55:47our our ability to uh support that at the scale that's needed is going to be challenged just because the rate at which we ramp up Electrical uh uh production is very different than the rate at which AI is ramping up as a discipline and so I think as a nation we're going to be challenged to respond quickly enough to maintain the very tenuous lead that we have in this field okay uh with the last nine seconds anybody have anything to add to that I'll
▶ 0:56:17just say that um AI is really transforming everything we think about science how we use data how we do experiments even how we think about developing new technology because AI with Advanced manufacturing allows you to make things you couldn't even conceive of before thank you and I back I thank the gentle lady the chair I recognize G from Tennessee Mr Flashman for five minutes thank you Mr chairman I appreciate your having this hearing to each and every one of the witnesses um thank you I've
▶ 0:56:47visited many of your Labs I've worked with you all I guess over the past 14 years now 15 years um in shorted our National Labs are a National Treasure um it's probably the most enlightening uh experience I've had as a member of Congress and now as a senior appropriator chairing the energy and water subcommittee which funds the um Department of energy but uh could not be more pleased and thankful for your opening statements and the questions
▶ 0:57:18um I wanted to uh ask each and every one of you uh your thoughts about this uh my district is home to the Oakridge National Lab actually the Oakridge reservation we have the nnsa facility there y12 building UPF uh nuclear cleanup is near and dear to my heart at many of your reservations I know Idaho has done a great job over the years Los Alamos um I chair seven or eight nuclear related caucuses
▶ 0:57:49so this is what I do in in Congress and each and every one of you all have been my partners uh this committee has long recognized the value of public private Partnerships in fact I think some of you alluded to this in your comments uh that boost our nation's competitiveness on a global scale so I'm going to ask each and every one of you all can you explain the benefits and share any examples of Industry collaboration
▶ 0:58:19leading to the commercialization of transformative technological achievements for example in in my district X energy which the chair has already referenced developed their Trio fuel at orl and is now building a commercial facility to produce it at scale uh Dr Wagner two companies working at inl are currently conducting a feasibility study to collocate their fuel fabrication facilities and are exploring collaboration on reprocessing and recycling
▶ 0:58:50Technologies which is also near and dear to my heart can you all comment on the benefit of Industry collaboration and the pathways to commercialization and I guess I'll just start with Dr Wagner and go through thank you thank you congressman and and I'd like to start by thanking you for your support of the National Laboratories in general and for nuclear energy in particular you've been a great advocate for for both of those areas and much much more um so you already are quite familiar with a lot of the public
▶ 0:59:20private Partnerships and the in the important aspects of going but I'd like to maybe just quickly uh talk about a couple uh you mentioned Trio fuel it was the Laboratories that came together uh with the Department of energy more than a decade ago to fa to figure out how to fabricate and then evaluate the performance of the fabricated Trio Fuel and and graphite associated with those reactor types working together with Private Industry and ultimately issuing a topical safety analysis report
▶ 0:59:51uh through the Electric Power Research Institute to the nuclear Regulatory Commission that formed a Baseline line then for all of these reactor developers to work from so really kickstarting that fuel form in terms of the availability for private uh private developers to use that today one of the things that we're really doing closely with multiple private companies is providing test beds for full system reactor demonstrations that will drisk as I said their Technologies and enable uh their path to commercial
▶ 1:00:21deployment these things are not possible um in facilities other than facil ities like the department of energy National Laboratories thank you sir Dr Mason um so I I guess maybe I'll highlight the importance of public private Partnerships in artificial intelligence uh the US is fortunate that we have private sector actors who are making massive investments in developing these capabilities in fact that's one of our big strategic advantages when you look
▶ 1:00:51at what's going on in China there are investments on a similar scale and of course in the Chinese system there is no clear distinction between government Investments and private Investments and National Security Investments that's why it's essential that we are able to Leverage The tremendous Innovation that's happening in our private sector uh for our national security needs um we have been working with uh many of the AI companies uh open AI anthropic
▶ 1:01:22we we've been using llama the The Meta open source AI but I wanted to highlight two Partnerships in particular uh one is with Nvidia the chipmaker uh last year we took delivery of a wonderful new machine called Vado that we um agreed to purchase four years ago it's a good thing we made the deal with Nvidia four years ago because I don't think we could get it now um and recently we reached an agreement with open AI to field their raw model weights
▶ 1:01:52on that machine in a classified environment in service of all three of the nnsa labs Livermore Sandia and Los Alamos and this is an example where we can take advantage of the huge investment that open aai developed or uh expended in developing their Advanced models but do it in a classified environment for our national security uh applications you know there may not be as big a financial model to incentivize the private sector to do
▶ 1:02:23that sort of work and that's why we need to work to align our interests and hopefully drive forward to Science and Technology as well thank you Mr chairman I think I've exceeded my time and and I'll due respect to our Witnesses uh who I know very well in respect but I certainly want to yield back I know our colleagues all want to speak well I wasn't going to point that out but the gentleman yields back chair now recognize ranking member Miss lkin for I would just like to note that the chair of the appropriation subcommittee gets
▶ 1:02:53extra time um the G yields her time no no no uh first I you know I want to thank this really wonderful panel of witnesses and not only for being here but for the work you do uh each and every day that advances science and helps protect our our nation Dr budell I you know I want to congratulate you again on the ni's stunning achievements it's um
▶ 1:03:23doe office of science selected Livermore to lead a multi-institutional Endeavor called the Starfire Hub focusing on exploring and developing immense potential of inertial Fusion Energy Technologies can you give us more details of the Starfire Hub to date and also what private Fusion companies you've been working with and what unique capabilities they're bringing to the effort yes thank you for the question uh representative lren uh the Starfire Hub is a really exciting
▶ 1:03:53opportunity for us to lean into our opportunity to build an inertial Fusion Energy ecosystem so this allows us to work with the many players emerging in the private Fusion industry uh to begin to build programs to develop Workforce that will support that industry and to Begin work on some of the important technical challenges that stand between these companies and Commercial deployment of Fusion Energy so in the eneral Fusion Energy realm uh were a smaller fraction of
▶ 1:04:23the fusion uh in the US but still um growing day by day we have Kat Cooperative research and development agreements with most of the companies in this Arena so that includes companies like ecer focused energy Fusion um and several new ones uh coming on the scene as time goes by and in each of those cases these companies are critically dependent on our capabilities and our Workforce in particular for inertial
▶ 1:04:54confinement Fusion the only facility uh where the physics of the igniting Target can be studied is the national ignition facility at Livermore so in each case these companies are critically dependent on our research teams we're also home to the most advanced modeling and simulation tools uh to enable them to design their new schemes for approaching a commercial scheme for Fusion Energy so this is It's a small effort um you know5
▶ 1:05:24to17 million but very important as a community building effort in the beginning I'll just note for the broader Fusion ecosystem this need for investment in public research infrastructure is also critically important and all of the fusion companies magnetic and eneral alike are counting on the infrastructure at the National Laboratories to really fill critical technical gaps for their schemes going forward I I I just note I mean there's probably more private sector money going into
▶ 1:05:54Fusion now than public but there's some things only we can fund the basic research that's going to be beneficial to every single company that's exploring opportunities I would note that China is currently uh building a nith replica that's bigger than what we have and meanwhile we have needs just to keep up with what we've got I I note that the um last in the December releases
▶ 1:06:24for Fusion from Office of science there was an award using AI to address questions as to Material Science for First wall Fusion issues what else needs to be done in terms of test Beds which CH I mean the SC the fusion scientists did an outline of what we should do we haven't funded it but China has fully funded it what do we need to do to beat them to the punch on this
▶ 1:06:55and to be successful in our quest for Fusion so I think uh ramping up the effort uh at the facilities that we currently have in the National Laboratories to do things like understand the performance of First wall materials and other uh critical componentry in high radiation environments uh these companies need us to help them with tritium fuel cycle so each of these reactor Concepts that uses trium requires a closed fuel cycle concept only the National Labs really have the infrastructure to advance that
▶ 1:07:25uh there are other types of materials and systems integration questions which are difficult to answer without the infrastructure at scale that we have so the fusion Labs Princeton Lawrence Livermore Oakridge National Laboratory Idaho um have a critical role to play really in providing that infrastructure there are a set of new facilities that have been proposed by Fusion Energy Sciences in the office of science uh that would play a critical role in advancing the cause uh but I fear that the time scale to develop
▶ 1:07:55new facilities means that we need to invest more in existing facilities to really try to fill these gaps I'm I'm not sharing an appropriation subcommittee so I will yield back my time since I'm over the G lady yields back the chair now repres now recognizes Lieutenant Colonel representative bigs from South Carolina for her five minuts and questioning welcome thank you chairman Weber for holding this important hearing today with the National Laboratories and I would like to thank the director s
▶ 1:08:25of Idaho of Los Alamos of Livermore and of argon National Labs for joining us and I want to bring attention um to our friends my friends at the Savannah River Laboratory so the security of our power grid is Paramount the modern world is more interconnected now than ever before and with this comes the risk of cyber attacks from non-state actors and foreign adversaries alike
▶ 1:08:55Savannah River National Laboratory through its Global Security directorate supports the United States national security commu Community by focusing its efforts on power grid security electronic warfare and wireless test and evaluation processes so my question is for each of you because of President Trump's America First agenda the United States is ready once
▶ 1:09:25again to strive for energy Independence and dominance we must ensure that our energy infrastructure is secure and that it is resilient in face of today's threat environment especially from the growing Perils of cyber attacks what are your Labs doing to address the cha challenges to energy resilience and what Partnerships do you see as critical to the success to reach this goal
▶ 1:09:58may I start please thank you for the question um so uh at at Idaho National Laboratory in addition to our energy Mission we do a lot of work in critical infrastructure security uh primarily uh cyber security for physical control systems uh as well as physical security of those systems uh partnering with Savannah River and other Laboratories we do a lot of work for the Department of Energy's um Caesar office that's cyber security energy security and emergency response as well as the
▶ 1:10:28Department of Homeland Security sis that's critical uh or cyber security infrastructure security uh resilience agency so um what we do then is uh We've developed we've done a lot of things as you probably are aware there's a lot of control systems in our infrastructure that were put in place before we understood the cyber security risks so we do vulnerability assessments to understand where those are how to address them working with the control system and the critical infrastructure owners uh to address
▶ 1:10:58those risks we also have developed methodologies to address consequence-based uh cyber security measures such that as we deploy new critical infrastructure that we um deploy it in a more cyber secure way from the very beginning multiple tools as well as training for the for the different owners of these critical infrastructures relative to their vulnerabilities and lastly I want to give give time for my colleagues uh we are working hard on more firm energy sources to shore
▶ 1:11:28up the reliability of our grid as well thank you great thank you um I can maybe illustrate with an example something uh that relates to your question uh at Less almost we've been collaborating with our colleagues at Oak Ridge National Lab looking at the application of quantum encryption to the uh controls that support uh electric grid operation we've been doing this in partnership with EP B uh the Chattanooga utility
▶ 1:11:58that um several years ago implemented a fiber Network across all of their grid uh and so they're an excellent partner for looking at what the future of the grid looks like where you have internet enabled fiber optical connections between the uh various circuits that switch things on and off which could be a source of disruption if uh a malign actor gained access and so by applying Quantum encryption
▶ 1:12:29we have uh Communications protocols that are much more resistant uh to external attack and so this EPB partnership allows us to basically operate uh test bed for future more secure uh grid security thank you uh there are four four examples I would uh site from argon argon also does quite a bit of work in the cyber security and critical infrastructure protection for not only the department of energy but for other federal agencies a great example
▶ 1:12:59is really critical infrastructure interdependency looking at if you will uh the impact of disruptions to our national gas gas supply to the uh electricity uh availability and the transmission broadly across the country another one is securing massive Edge assets and this again is looking at assets at the the uh edge of the grid if you will it might be gas turbines it might be combined heat and power it might might be distributed storage it might be buildings themselves and the list goes on it's
▶ 1:13:30really the backbone if you will of the power grid the third one is supplying uh securing the supply chain uh certainly uh security at multiple levels is critically important uh we talk about materials and components to in terms of really enabling the power system and the last one is Extreme event assessment and mitigation really understanding the impacts if you will of extreme weather and how to respond quickly prepare for and respond quickly to those events great I'm sorry but um my time has expired and out
▶ 1:14:00of respect for our colleagues I yield back well the gentle lady would like to Y back but Dr Buell would you like to weigh in before we do that I thought you anxious well that's how how you decide where we sit depends on how much you get to talk but um the uh it's the same way around our dinner table just so you know exactly we have many of the same efforts I mentioned already our Skyfall lab where we're really trying to understand these cyber physical systems because of our work in
▶ 1:14:30National Security uh we have very strong capabilities in risk assessment and risk analysis we understand the threat space very well and can bring that again in our Partnerships with the private sector to critical civilian infrastructure like the grid uh but we also have many Partnerships looking at this the intersection between civilian infrastructure and things like military installations really trying to understand how to make those facilities uh and ensure that uh critical capabilities like that always have
▶ 1:15:00secure access to energy in their environment so thank you sir now that g South Carolina yields back just remember you owe me so CH now recognize G from Oregon for five minutes thank you chair Weber and ranking member Ross and thank you to our Witnesses for being here today this is quite timely to have this conversation in the midst of unprecedented attacks on our research Enterprise report suggests president Trump is looking to cut the NSF budget by 2third blanket attacks on diversity
▶ 1:15:30have thrown existing research grants into question and cause panic and confusion amongst researchers Elon musk's henchmen are running a muck at Noah threatening critical systems like the National Weather Service that researchers and the public rely on inflation reduction act funding has been frozen and musk um employees now apparently have access to doe it systems and finally in my backyard um the or or ni has announced indirect funding cuts that will cost Oregon institutions tens of millions of dollars in hamstring
▶ 1:16:01critical biomedical research at the Oregon Health and Science University so I just want to be Crystal Clear if the administration continues down this path life-saving discoveries will fail to materialize Young Americans will have fewer economic opportunities and our nation will be weaker and less competitive on a world stage all of this is a frightening State of Affairs as we watch China propel tell its AI development so has anyone of you um been contacted by the department
▶ 1:16:31of government efficiency or Doge and if so in what capacity or for what purpose I'll jump in first and no there's been no contact at argon thank you yeah we've not had any contact at our laboratory either thank you the same no contact no contact at lasos thank you should anyone from Doge seek access to your internal systems
▶ 1:17:02or proprietary data how would you respond I mean we take direction from the Department of energy so um you know Pro if if a contract Direction was given and all the necessary requirements were met in terms of security and so forth then we would certainly comply with that ction if I could follow up on that question what if you were asked
▶ 1:17:32to forgo the security um the um the the way the labs work is as as contractors we have a set of uh requirements that flow from the Department of energy in the form of doe orders though those orders are in our contract uh we are required to comply with them um if the
▶ 1:18:02orders were removed from our contract or waved then that might provide a mechanism but as as of the moment all the security orders are still in place and we we are required by contract to comply with them thank you so I imagine um we might need litigation if contracts were not to take effect to over override those security mechanisms is that correct um
▶ 1:18:33I don't know about litigation but certainly it requires Contracting officer direction to change any of those things okay thank you the National Labs engage in far-reaching Partnerships with researchers at academic institutions across the country and in Oregon these include Oregon Tech students working on Clean Energy Solutions with the national renewable energy lab Oregon State driving Quantum advances with argon and the University of Oregon working with the Pacific Northwest National Lab to pursue discoveries in Material Sciences just to
▶ 1:19:03touch on a few have any of you proactively directed any University Partners to amend or altogether stop research activities in response to the administration's orders on Dei or any other executive order no not at ARA thank you I don't believe we have it either thank you no no thank you have any of you heard from University partners with concerns about their ability to continue research Partnerships
▶ 1:19:33no thank you no no and no great thank you I will yield back my time the G lady yields back chair now recognizes representative herrian from North Carolina for 5 minutes chairman Weber and rank member Ross thank you very much for holding this hearing today and to our Witnesses thanks so much for your testimony really appreciate it I would agree with the gentleman from Tennessee
▶ 1:20:04who said earlier that our National Labs are indeed National Treasures and as the American taxpayer invests their National Treasures into our National Treasures your Labs we expect to have great and incredible outcomes uh from those Investments and I think in many cases we do but this committee has heard in full committee setting testimony that we are behind in research and development and
▶ 1:20:34a portion of that difference that we've seen can be attributed to intellectual property theft and I'm just curious as I read through your testimonies and have listened to you today uh you all control collectively tens of thousands of employees you have thousands of visiting researchers how how many of those employees Andor visiting researchers are citizens of the
▶ 1:21:06PRC so at Idaho National Laboratory we have approximately 50 uh foreign Nationals from from China um as of right now at at Los Almos there are about 100 uh citizens out of 18,000 uh total people working at the lab uh about 100 citizens of uh the so-called countries of risk China Russia uh North Korea and Iran
▶ 1:21:36uh obviously with the new language in the National Defense authorization and act we are working through a process to come into compliance with that by the April end date and so that number is going down so Lawrence Livermore uh citizens of China who are not yet legal permanent residents of the United States we have just short of 60 people and we're working to come into compliance with the requirements of the National Defense authorization act uh and and I just noted
▶ 1:22:06in my testimony this is on top of the significant systems we have in place to manage our research environment and ensure that we protect uh sensitive technology information uh important research facilities and access to our people on a daily basis yeah at argon argon's office of science laboratory uh the number of foreign Nationals is much higher at the laboratory uh total uh for Nationals across argon's
▶ 1:22:36activities is just short of a thousand uh several of those uh do come from the uh public Republic of China when you say several are you talking about three of the Thousand or or more than that I'm talking of uh a few hundred a few hundred okay have either of you any of you have you had any confirmed cases of Espionage at your Labs dealing with these
▶ 1:23:08individuals um in terms of the people currently at the lab know uh obviously over the course of history at Los alos going back to Claus fuks in the 1940s yes there have been instances of Espionage uh which I would note generally relates to access to classified information which is something that is denied to any foreign uh and N at argon uh we we
▶ 1:23:38we do operate under what we call the managed research environment which uh really provides uh really a close look at all we do in terms of Engagement with foreign Nationals including vetting those that want to come to the laboratory to to access our facilities or collaborate we also uh make sure that we are extra careful in terms of scrubbing and reviewing any potential partnership opportunities any partnership uh activities that we might do with the foreign company so yeah I'll confirm nothing in in
▶ 1:24:08even remotely recent history at our laboratory again we've been in uh in existence since 1952 working in sensitive areas um our our in addition to the things we've said to date about the manag research environment we also have operated across that time with very strict controls around classified research which is segregated both physically and uh by other controls uh and no foreign Nationals have access to that research or those networks
▶ 1:24:39say Idaho National Laboratory just like the other National Laboratories there's a great level of interest from foreign countries in the work that we do um we have a number of safeguards that director Karns mentioned in terms of managing those those risks uh and we do not have any confirmed cases of Espionage uh but I would say that's largely probably because we we work very hard to keep an eye and and and put safeguards in place before such things would occur thank you all very much for your testimony and Mr chairman I yel back gentleman y's back chair I recognizes
▶ 1:25:09the gentleman from texes uh Mr Turner for five minutes thank you chairman wibur and the ranking member Ross um let me thank you all for what you do I want to also just highlight the importance of the research work you all are doing with the grid I know in Houston in February of 2021 it was weather related uh but it literally shut down the city and in in fact affected even our water systems so um when you talk about weather or cyber security we
▶ 1:25:39know how detrimental it can be if we don't build in resilience and reliability and then um U Mr uh Dr Kar I want to thank you all for your collaboration with the Greater Houston partnership with Exon Mobile and sheffron um can you just elaborate a little bit more on what y'all are doing to establish a lower carbon system yes thank you for the uh question uh the partnership really is
▶ 1:26:09relatively new established about a year ago uh really with a great engagement from over 20 industry um members in the in the Houston area we're in the process of working with a few of the other Laboratories including the national renewable energy laboratory and NL the national energy technology laboratory to really settle on a plan of attack along with the industry members there in the Greater Houston area so right now we're working to scope the study
▶ 1:26:40and really kind of understanding how we can be best uh uh available and able to really help the Greater Community there the Houston area as they look at low low carbon options for based chemical production well let me applaud that collaboration um and you all have also mentioned the public private relationships and Dr Kern you mentioned um uh the engagement with more than 300 universities uh let me just ask are any of those um historically black colleges
▶ 1:27:10and HBCU uh yes yes Howard University since we're here in the district comes quickly to mind but many others including our North Carolina ENT for example uh working together in terms of some of uh work associated with environmental monitoring activities and um it's been an area that we've really been deliberate about uh in terms of engaging providing opportunities for really all so thank you okay and then
▶ 1:27:40uh let me just ask in in general uh I know that there are some offices that have had to be closed because of the conversation executive orders on diversity Equity inclusion I think recently you had to close an office is correct yes at argon we closed the the diversity Equity inclusion office uh we no longer have a chief diversity officer uh We've dis continued our diversity Equity inclusion uh councils at the laboratory
▶ 1:28:10uh so many uh changes have occurred uh you know to be uh in compliance with the new directives um much of that activity was driven by a requirement in our contract to develop a Dei plan uh that requirements been eliminated as well by the department and uh was the the the uh can you tell us elaborate the impact of having to to close that diversity equity and office I think in terms of impact uh certainly uh there were individuals
▶ 1:28:41uh employed there that uh are no longer employed there and we've had to really kind of understand their strengths and look for other opportunities for them at the laboratory uh fortunately we have what we call the Argon Leadership Institute which is really focused on the development of all our employees at the laboratory in terms of their training thinking about career ladders what opportunities they see opportunities for them to engage broadly to really strengthen their their base and so uh that's really been uh what we've talked about in terms of um
▶ 1:29:12not only past activities but future activities uh at argon we have a set of what we call the core values it's impact safety uh respect integrity and teamwork uh that's really what we're using to engage with the Argon Workforce broadly as we move forward and Dr Wagner have you all been impacted by the executive orders dealing with diversity equity and inclusion so we have not um had any employees um you know removed or eliminated
▶ 1:29:42um and so so while we have changed some things in terms of of what we say and and how we talk about things uh we have not had any further uh impacts than that okay and Dr Dr Mason uh similarly we've made some changes in our organizational structure consistent with the contract guidance that we received um uh however we have uh you know lab has been growing and we have other needs and Human Resources so
▶ 1:30:13we've been able to accommodate the employees uh and um uh have also um you know made the necessary adjustments to uh both comply with the order but maintain our commitment to maintaining to having a workplace that is free from discrimination uh and is respectful uh of everyone in the contributions that they bring and Dr Bell unfortunately my time is out and your seating is
▶ 1:30:43we have to work on that uh Mr chairman I yeld back well before you do let's yield the gentle lady some time our situation is similar to describe what's described by the other labs we did have uh an office that we closed uh those people uh spent a great small team of people spent most of their time really working on Workforce engagement and building that sense of community and team that's so critical to doing big team science the way we do and so uh we have uh
▶ 1:31:13restructured our program uh and directed them to other activities so that's the main impact for us and I'll just say that the critical importance of bringing together a broad range of ideas of backgrounds of experiences is really how we drive excellence in our Laboratories so we're we're very strongly focused on continuing that focus on Excellence thank you Mr chairman gentle lady and the gentleman yields back and now recognize gentleman Mr bar for five
▶ 1:31:44minutes thank you Mr chairman ranking member and appreciate all of our Witnesses being here today I'm always fascinated with the various kinds of basic research that you do a lot of times that's a precursor to Industry doing theirs but um Dr Kars you're probably the closest to our district in West centr in fact last time I saw you we were at a joint meeting at Purdue University and I want to make sure you understood that Purdue University right with that anyway
▶ 1:32:14so anyway uh you know since that lab is so close um and I believe the projects really reflect the Leading Edge on Quant science in the midwest has developed and in fact our nation's sole Quantum quor runs from Chicago to Ohio as you well aware with most of that quarter uh in Indiana so during this committee's prior markup of the national Quantum initiative reauthorization act
▶ 1:32:44I offered an amendment to direct the national Quantum initiative advisory committee to study the creation of a national Quantum Corridor connecting our National Labs our universities and our military bases across the country with speed and power of a quantum computer so do you think we're headed in the right direction with that Quantum quor and if so um how can we best secure that quor against any breaches and research in your opinion yeah thank you very much
▶ 1:33:14for the question I do appreciate the uh the subcommittee and the committee's uh support of the national Quantum initiative really in its uh renewal if you will in that regard I think uh many good things have happened under the national Quantum initiative uh one that's particularly important to argon has been the standup of the national Quantum research centers we operate what's called CeX really focused on interconnects uh you know the fascinating thing to me about this is really the strong interest from industry in many aspects really of quantum information science that we
▶ 1:33:44have from industry we have 11 industrial Partners as part of that Center the laboratory has had to devote one day a week for conversation with other uh Industrial potential other industrial partners that want to come to argon and talk about Quantum science and their own ideas and how they might partner with us and other National Laboratories I think that's great in terms of pulling things together you know I think uh the department of energy again through the office of Science and the national Quantum research centers there five of them it's really created a very Dynamic
▶ 1:34:15ecosystem uh I think initially uh the first of five years has really been focused on developing capabilities and building Partnerships uh as we look really to moving forward as suggested by the national Quantum initiative uh it's really about uh further activation of the ecosystem that's been established many of the uh I would say uh geographic regions of the country have developed uh Quantum networks uh Quantum test beds if you will for
▶ 1:34:45Quantum Communications and uh there's always interest in in thinking about uh linking systems can we join our efforts together in terms of that National quantum Network that you spoke of Big Challenge uh Tech technolog is not just there yet and so it's really important that we continue to invest both in the fundamentals and the engineering aspects associated with Quantum information science you know right along with that it's amazing to me how much energy these data centers take I've had I've had
▶ 1:35:15U energy suppliers indicate to me it's going to quadruple their demand for electrinic but anyway uh I'm going to go to everyone for this question uh you know I mentioned Purdue University and we've been working on the small modular reactors in a nuclear study and we're working with Duke Energy to study the feasibility of using the smmr to power an entire college campus and recently the reactor Purdue
▶ 1:35:45was fully digitized and started back up so can you elaborate on the challenge that uh that that kind of transition and taking it from analog to digital uh and the consequences of that in related to the m smrs and we got 46 seconds so I'm going to start so uh I'll be very quick uh but there there are increased risks in cyber security uh in transer transitioning from analog to digital uh and uh researchers around the laboratory complex multiple
▶ 1:36:16Laboratories have been working with utilities and the nuclear Regulatory Commission to address those considerations uh and actually there's uh progress made on on a utility in the United States to do that as a as a front runner pilot uh to addressing that uh those concerns and I do see that going in that direction in the future we got 12 seconds for three of you you got four seconds of piece I would just note that actually this is an area where doe did pave the way because the high flux isotope reactor at Oak Ridge reached
▶ 1:36:46to digital controls well Advanced of industry and that I think perspective informs some of the work that my colleague discussed Mr chair could I ask for a couple more seconds to get yes sir I'd like to get it thank you yeah certainly uh as has already been commented on uh it's underway I think it's important that we really stay uh really engaged and and really look at the opportunities with open eyes and be as smart as we possibly can and make sure that we're at Cutting Edge in terms of the
▶ 1:37:16transition agreed and I think Tom's point about highlighting the role that we can play in Partnership uh in the public sector we have facil facilities and experience in many of these areas that could really help accelerate this transition for industry thank all of you and I yield back J Ys back chair I recognizes the representative from California representative fredman thank you chair Babin and ranking member lran um for the record I firmly believe in continued Federal funding into basic research
▶ 1:37:46and I am deeply alarmed by musk and president Trump's basic freezing of all federal fund fing that has very much damaged American Scientific leadership and we've heard today about what cuts are doing to institutions there is massive uh return on investment from these research dollars as as we know and I think it's idiotic to indiscriminately cut funding when we get such a massive return for those dollars even Beyond nuclear energy which we've heard a bit about today this
▶ 1:38:16is key for our national security and the value of those Investments can be seen very clearly in California where we're proud of our scientific ADV uh leadership um we have a long history of being both a national and Global leader in science and have set the standard for groundbreaking research from Aerospace to Advanced Computing to climate change research and clean energy and that work continues today with new technologies like artificial intelligence uh we're home to Leading universities and research institutions that attract the best and brightest
▶ 1:38:46from around the world and we are proud that our children have access to those great institutions as they look looked for opportunities as they grow we have collaborations between our National Labs and leading universities that have fostered a real culture of innovation in California in fact right outside my district caltech's Joint Center for artificial photosynthesis has brought together a 100 world-class scientists and Engineers from Caltech to partner with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory um those
▶ 1:39:17lab driven advancements translate to high quality jobs the kind of jobs that people want for Upward Mobility and they grow our local economies in California and Beyond but we have huge challenges in California uh we recognize that man-made climate change has led to huge challenges just in our state we are grappling with droughts and huge swings in weather and we know that the mega fires that we have seen in the last 10 years are a direct result of that climate
▶ 1:39:47change and at the same time our new our president is saying that we should drill baby drill now we know what burning fossil fuels means in California where we have the worst air quality in the nation especially in the Central Valley and we are suffering in Los Angeles from devastating fires that were certainly fueled by drought um make made much worse by climate change director Bulow I am wondering how your
▶ 1:40:17research is figuring into the Clean Energy Solutions that are not only creating great jobs in California but will help us lead the world out of the climate change impacts that are being felt not just in California not just in the United States but all over the globe and we know that other governments will are looking desperately for Solutions and I think it's pretty clear that whoever whatever country comes up with the solutions
▶ 1:40:47that will help us Escape climate change are going is going to have the world's leading economy uh because that technology is so highly sought after so what are you doing and what do you see on the horizon for those clean energy solutions so I divide my thank you for the question divide my answer into two parts um in the near term um our researchers have been working hard to uh manage uh carbon in our environment so how to make
▶ 1:41:17uh fossil fuel burning Technologies uh cleaner how to capture and store carbon um how to utilize oil and gas infrastructure um after it's been expended for some of these efforts uh and we have been a big part the National Labs have been a big part of uh building the national natural gas uh economy in the United States so I think that uh adaptation of those Technologies in a way that uh makes them sustainable in the near term is critically important for the future
▶ 1:41:47we are right at the heart of building this future Fusion economy and the US has an extraordinary opportunity to lead on this front we have many of the leading facilities in the world and the only facility in the world that's ever achieved energy gain in a fusion experiment so that moves Fusion technology from the realm of fantasy technology into perhaps uh an a relatively nearer term solution for large scale Basel load energy development uh with a new technology so we're working very hard
▶ 1:42:17to build up the ecosystem that goes along with that that's addressing the R&D challenges that's still remain to making Fusion Energy commercially viable working with companies to understand the gaps they have and then directing our research to rapidly fill those gaps again materials tritium fuel cycle being two notable ones and advancing the state-of-the-art and key Technologies for uh things like inertial Fusion Energy where Advanced Laser Technology High repetition rate experiments and higher gain Target designs
▶ 1:42:48which we can work on at our national ignition facility will be Central to success thank you and I you back G Ys back the chair now recognized a gentleman from New York representative Riley thank you thank you Mr chairman and thank you to all the witnesses here I um really appreciate hearing about all the incredible work you're doing on everything from uh Fusion to machine learning all these things that we really need to do uh to stay competitive in our
▶ 1:43:18our global economy uh it's really really important stuff um I wanted to use my time today talk about something different that's uh really immediate and hitting close uh to home in Upstate New York and something that I want to ask for your help with and that is uh the opioid epidemic um it's just ripping through towns across Upstate New York and West Endicott where I'm from uh we've lost some of my high school classmates or their parents because of overdoses and addiction in um Sullivan County
▶ 1:43:48we're losing uh two people per month because of uh overdoses and we're having uh 10 overdoses per month so two deaths and 10 overdoses per month in just Sullivan County uh Green County in my district we've got the second highest overdose rate in the state I was at a diner in Catskill in the fall and it was one of the issues that came up over and over again uh we're losing kids and and parents and friends and neighbors and I think there's a lot of reasons for this a big
▶ 1:44:18part of it is frankly we've just got a wide open border when it comes to fentanyl trafficking so you've got China sending these ingredients to Mexico and then the cartels are making Fentanyl and then they're smuggling it into America where it's killing our people and it's got to stop it's it's got to stop and I think we really need the help of the best and the brightest scientists in this country to do it we need better technology at the border to stop uh the fentanyl trafficking and to De detect the fentanyl it
▶ 1:44:48seems like the sort of thing that if we were able to harness the best and the brightest scientist in this country we could find a way to detect fentanyl as it's coming uh to the Border I know that there's already some work being done with our National Labs in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security on this um I put to you all as some of the leading uh scientific voices in this country how can we start detecting this fentanyl uh what do you need from Congress in terms of if we have to give you the mission if we have
▶ 1:45:19to have what do we need to do to to Galvanize some folks to to put some of our best and brightest Minds on uh on um I actually have something that might be of interest to you but I'm not able to discuss it in an open form I I understand I would uh that sounds even more interesting now that you put it that way uh
▶ 1:45:49and uh because it's a response to my question but also it sounds sounds even cooler so let's uh let's uh let's find a time I'm going to drop off my card uh with you and I and let's talk about that so we have something that we can tell you about uh which is development of a new countermeasure to counter the effect of fentanyl on those who might come in contact with it uh perhaps not uh an overdose but um for example First Responders who go out into the field so using the combination of
▶ 1:46:19our experimental and computational capabilities we were able to to uh develop a therapeutic that counters the toxic effects of fentanyl that could be used for that purpose incredible yeah that's exactly the the the type of work I think we we need anybody else have suggestions on this one of the things I'd like to work with you all on and work with the administration on is whether there's a way I mean you guys are just doing incredible stuff like amazing breakthroughs uh and I just think that we have
▶ 1:46:49the best scientists and uh research in this country and we have this immediate problem that is literally killing my constituents and what I want to do is take all of your talents and and your skills uh and and and put folks to work on this mission of detecting this stuff before it gets in into the country we've got to get the border secure we've got to do it and to do that we need better technology and to get better technology we've got to uh have our scientists working
▶ 1:47:19on it so I want to support you and supporting that kind of work and um uh Dr Mason will'll talk uh after about the super secret cool stuff that you guys are doing thank you and I'll yield back my time Gan yels back chair recognizes Dr Foster for five minutes well thank you and um I guess since we were just talking about fenel I can't resist pointing out that argon National Lab won research performed at argon won the Nobel Prize for the study of the G coupled protein receptor and this is the
▶ 1:47:49actual mechanism when the opioid molecule uh hits the receptor in your brain that causes the addict to become addictive this can be directly imaged and has been at the Argon APS they can see exactly what happens when the well the Fentanyl and it's everything that happens after that to the fentanyl molecule hits the brain and how that works and when you get that kind of understanding we are now rolling out medically assisted treatments that directly crobar that receptor so that when the you know when the opioid
▶ 1:48:20molecule arrives you actually don't you don't feel it and so it is this kind of research over decades that really you know there are many lines of Defense we need against fental and the Damage it's doing the last best line of defense is the human brain and if we can find simple ways to Crowbar the response of the human brain to fentanyl you won't need border security or anything else because no one will be you won't have addicts desperate to buy the Fentanyl and so I'm I'm just really proud that that's happened in my district it was Argon
▶ 1:48:50National Lab and the aps um let's you know as I mentioned I you know I um I have argon in my district and I was really really impressive line of research and I hope you I I hope that all of the labs will really survive this review that's coming up with flying colors because I for years PR prior to co I was the chair of the National Labs caucus where I got to drag members of Congress to the National Labs and when they' arrived there I have no idea this neat stuff is happening
▶ 1:49:20and then they were they were big advocates for preserving the and expanding the budget um of the National Labs and so at some point now that Co is over I think we'll res resurrect that because uh it's really you know it's it's really breathtaking what's happening and and a lot of it the the labs serve as a very powerful flywheel because things tend to go in and out of fashion you know in Fusion you know Fusion's gone in and out of fashion in in different forms of several times during my career in science
▶ 1:49:50and it's and so it's really nice that the National Labs have a uh capacity that is there in good times and bad and to make that happen you have to have Congress uh and the department of energy that understands the permanent value of keeping the team together uh even when you know it's not popular and that's why I think it's really going to be an all hands on deck moment to preserve the budgets of these so you don't see uh layoffs just because you can during bad times on on the budgets here so
▶ 1:50:20I think that's um let's say I have now used up uh like way too much of my time and then things um let's see is there a little bit you know there's a there's a really valuable thing the National Labs do which is to curate data sets you I think that was mentioned the um the protein the protein folding problem data sets was generated you know in large part well at argon and and other labs and and that gets curated at National facilities
▶ 1:50:51uh sometimes that's necessary because of national security reasons other times when they're um you know when there are uh medical privacy reasons that there's been a role for for Laboratories to keep those secret and yet appropriately accessible to researchers and you know it's a tough thing and and the labs have the background to do that um yeah um yeah director Kerns can you say a little bit about what argon's been doing in terms of just curating data sets and providing compute for um
▶ 1:51:21for you know Searchers yeah thank you very much it's a critical matter for sure it is something that not only argon but several the other Laboratories have strengthen in as well um thank you for mentioning the advanced Photon Source uh tremendous uh opportunity here to work with the broader scientific community over 7,000 users on an annual basis I mentioned earlier that we've just completed the upgrade which will make it uh uh I think creative create even more demand for the science that one will be able to do there it does generate a tremendous amount of data
▶ 1:51:52um and we're working hard to really understand how best to really help the researchers take that data and really use it to provide uh needed information to further their experiments and so critical in that way we also have the honor really of having uh a leadership Computing facility at argon Aurora I mentioned earlier exess scale system uh certainly one of the key aspects in terms of really having that kind of compute capability is really being able to store and work with large amounts of data the all
▶ 1:52:22of the ex scale systems across the department all three of them have really been built with um certainly modela simulation data science and AI in mind Kim mentioned earlier that uh ELC Capitan has over 40,000 I think gpus are argon's Intel uh build system at Aurora has about 60,000 gpus so really fantastic in terms I'm afraid my time is now up and so but I I just want to thank the chair and the and the staff for letting me well come back here
▶ 1:52:52I I miss this Mr Foster if you need to move on with two more questions for the other Witnesses we don't want to feel them to feel left out well I don't know I could ask about a scientific Break Even versus uh economic Break Even but I guess I won't go there right now I'm getting so the gentleman yields back the chair now recognizes chairman of the full committee Dr Babin thank you chairman Weber appreciate it and I want to say thank you to our Witnesses here uh for being here today with
▶ 1:53:22your valuable uh introspection and expertise knowledge um I'm going to ask this of of all of you Witnesses if you don't mind and I would ask you please to be brief because I have other other questions I I want to ask when we talk about the importance of maintaining uh critical infrastructure facilities and Workforce to support our basic research it's important to understand the context of where funding went recently over the last 5 years the department
▶ 1:53:53of energy recently uh close to 100 billion received close to 100 billion in supplemental Appropriations from the iig the IRA which established over 70 plus new programs of the 97 billion appropriated to doe what percentage and amount went to the National Laboratories out of that uh 97 billion and how much did did each of your Labs receive from these supplemental appropri ation
▶ 1:54:23please answer very very briefly how much did you get out of the 97 billion so I cannot speak to the percentage that went uh to the Department of energy Laboratories I can get back to you with that information please do uh for Idaho National Laboratory re we've received $150 million uh Rel and we use those dollars towards modernization of facilities at our materials and fuels complex and advanced test director thank you yes sir Los alos received $200,000 so50 $1 150 million
▶ 1:54:54$200,000 next please uh $60 million really devoted primarily to uh helping us with the exascale computer at the laboratory Aurora and also some work in terms of heat recovery systems at the advanced Photon Source gotcha thank you and Dr ble so we had a $7 million project that was recently de obligated from the lab okay thank you very much um and then uh Dr Wagner uh abalene Christian University in Texas uh received its
▶ 1:55:24nrrc permit for the construction of the first liquid salt fueled reactor in uh at abalene Christian University in in my state of Texas however the project is currently facing issues with procuring uh Halo uh fuel for its reactor how can Congress help accelerate this procurement process and what is the current status of the experiment breeder reactor 2 uh ebr2 spent fuel being converted into Halo if you could
▶ 1:55:54answer that I would appreciate it yeah I'll try to be quick um Congress has already done quite a bit uh to try to establish the capabilities domestically to to produce High Le or Halo fuel right uh including $700 million in the bipartisan infrastructure law and more recently $2.7 billion to establish domestic capability um I don't know what Congress can do relative to the procurement aspect that's something the department of energy is pursuing on ebr2 we are reprocessing
▶ 1:56:24uh spent nuclear fuel from the experimental Breer reactor 2 that was a high enriched uranium uh fuel we recover that material we down blend it to high lau and we are making that Avail we will work with the Department to make that available to private companies and perhaps abalene Christian uh as of now we are um on our on our path to uh reprocessing all that material that will result in about 9.2 metric tons of high Leu uh by the the end of this decade uh we're about halfway through that
▶ 1:56:54material that's great it's kind of disconcerting to the university to have gotten their permit but not able to be able to uh to obtain fuel okay as I wrap up uh I'd like to address one thing that was brought up today uh that caught my attention uh my colleagues have mentioned that the Trump Administration spending pause is unprecedented i' i' politely remind my colleagues that the previous administration delayed alloc ation of funding from the ija the
▶ 1:57:24IRA and chips and science laws to add nonstatutory conditions like Union requirements unnecessary envir environmental reviews and Dei conditions not to mention the fact that the bid Administration actually canceled and redirected funding for our border wall which Congress uh had voted on signing the law even to the point of selling off the materials uh of the border wall that was under used uh for 10 cents on the dollar
▶ 1:57:55unlike the previous administration if funding is required to be dispersed by a specific time this Administration said it would do so if the law allows discretion the president has the authority to review this funding given uh the billions of dollars that went out the door at the end of the last Administration specifically The Loan program office at Department of energy that gave out over 50 billion in loan guarantee in just the last 5 days of the Biden administration's
▶ 1:58:25term some of those very risky asking questions about funding that was described by previous administration officials as throwing gold bars off the Titanic that might be a good idea and so with that Mr chairman I will yield back chairman yields back uh the chair would like to enter into the record a letter from the partnership for AI infrastructure with that objection so ordered I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions the record will remain open for 10 days for
▶ 1:58:55additional comments and written questions for the members this hearing
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