The Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Proposal to Support Us Basic Research Hearing
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S. HRG. 110–1107 THE FISCAL YEAR 2009 BUDGET PROPOSAL TO SUPPORT U.S. BASIC RESEARCH HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION MARCH 11, 2008 Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 72–808 PDF WASHINGTON : 2012 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 072808 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 S:\GPO\DOCS\72808.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia TED STEVENS, Alaska, Vice Chairman JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas BARBARA BOXER, California OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine BILL NELSON, Florida GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JIM DEMINT, South Carolina THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware DAVID VITTER, Louisiana CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri JOHN THUNE, South Dakota AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi MARGARET L. CUMMISKY, Democratic Staff Director and Chief Counsel LILA HARPER HELMS, Democratic Deputy Staff Director and Policy Director CHRISTINE D. KURTH, Republican Staff Director, and General Counsel PAUL NAGLE, Republican Chief Counsel SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada, Ranking JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas BARBARA BOXER, California GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JIM DEMINT, South Carolina CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri JOHN THUNE, South Dakota AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota (II) VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 072808 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\GPO\DOCS\72808.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE C O N T E N T S Page Hearing held on March 11, 2008 ............................................................................ 1 Statement of Senator Kerry .................................................................................... 1 Statement of Senator Klobuchar ............................................................................ 49 WITNESSES Bement, Jr., Dr. Arden L., Director, National Science Foundation ..................... 18 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20 Marburger III, Ph.D., Hon. John H., Director, Office of Science and Tech- nology Policy ......................................................................................................... 4 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 Turner, Dr. James M., Acting Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce ...................................................... 26 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 APPENDIX Leshner, Ph.D., Alan I., Chief Executive Officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher, Science, prepared statement .............................................................................................................. 65 Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell to: Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr. ................................................................................. 72 Hon. John H. Marburger III, Ph.D. ................................................................ 71 Stevens, Hon. Ted, U.S. Senator from Alaska, prepared statement ................... 65 Vest, Dr. Charles M., President, National Academy of Engineering, President Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, prepared statement ......... 70 (III) VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 072808 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\GPO\DOCS\72808.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 072808 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\GPO\DOCS\72808.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE THE FISCAL YEAR 2009 BUDGET PROPOSAL TO SUPPORT U.S. BASIC RESEARCH TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2008 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry, Chair- man of the Subcommittee, presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY, U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS Senator KERRY. Good morning. This hearing will come to order. Thank you, gentlemen for being here. We appreciate it. I apologize for being a few moments late. We’re all very well aware of the challenge that we face as a na- tion to maintain our dominance in the fields of science and tech- nology. The sheer volume of recent undergraduate degrees awarded worldwide in science and engineering underscores this concern. In 2004, China graduated more than 600,000 engineers while India graduated over 350,000, the U.S. graduated fewer than 70,000. Some have tried to do a sort of comparative population analysis on that, but I think the raw numbers annualized really speak for themselves and raise enormous issues, not to mention that in recent travels, as I’ve been to various countries, it is quite remarkable how much money, effort, public commitment, private commitment, other countries are making to this endeavor and any- body who isn’t watching what these other countries are doing is missing the big picture of this challenge to our country. It’s well established that in order to remain competitive, we’re going to need to invest in basic research and that’s the type of re- search that is not targeted to produce a short-term financial gain. A generation ago, this type of research was being performed by the private sector, specifically by the private sector leaders in the laboratories that we all became so familiar with as we grew up, whether it was the Bell Laboratories or others, but today, the de- mands have really shifted, driven by the quarterly earnings re- ports, Wall Street, and a different way of looking at investment and so private sector research budgets have really been shifted to- ward the type of applied research that produces a quick turn- around on investment. (1) VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 072808 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\DOCS\72808.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE 2 From the Council on Competitiveness to the National Academies of Sciences, the call has been made for the Federal Government to step up and fill the void. Already in the 110th Congress, we’ve taken some steps, big steps toward addressing what Bill Gates re- ferred to last March as our ‘‘contentment with living off the invest- ments of previous generations.’’ Last year, we passed the COMPETES Act, which set a course for doubling the research budgets at critical agencies, at NSF, N–I–S– T, NIST, and the DOE, Office of Energy, within the next several years. Among its many contributions, the COMPETES Act author- izes the Technology Innovation Program and the TIP, which re- places the successful Advanced Technology Program, is designed to provide Federal grant funding to promote the kind of high-risk, high-reward research that is too often avoided by risk-averse pri- vate investors. The COMPETES Act also reinforces our commitment to strug- gling manufacturing companies by reauthorizing the Manufac- turing Extension Partnership, a program designed to transfer ex- pertise in technologies developed under the NIST programs to spe- cifically help small and mid-sized U.S. companies, manufacturers. While the President’s budget adds back a portion of the funding that was eliminated during the last gasps of the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations process, it just doesn’t come close to providing the level of funding authorized under the COMPETES Act. So, on the one hand, we have Congress embracing a national policy and on the other hand, we have an administration that is, frankly, choos- ing to ignore those authorized levels and submit its own lesser numbers. In fact, even after considering proposed increases for NIST, NSF and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the fact is that funding for basic and applied research across all agencies will fall by .5 percent. In real terms, if the President’s budget proposals were to be enacted, the Federal R&D investment would have fallen by 9 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2004 and 2009 and that, I would respectfully suggest, is the only honest way to measure where we’re heading. To top it off, the administration remains inexplicably steadfast in its commitment to eliminating the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and I don’t really completely understand either of those choices, folks, for the simple reason that there are scores of success stories generated from the very modest Federal investment in these two programs. It was an ATP partnership that led to the creation of the digital mammogram. In my