TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER JOINT HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES U.S. SENATE NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION SEPTEMBER 4, 1986 [No. 161] Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology, and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 67-150 0 WASHINGTON : 1987 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office US. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 rX K ' .., ;.- .,,... COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DON FUQUA, Florida, Chairman ROBERT A. ROE, New Jersey MANUEL LUJAN, JR., New Mexico* GEORGE E. BROWN, JH., California ROBERT S. WALKER, Pennsylvania JAMES H. SCHEUER, New York F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., MARILYN LLOYD, Tennessee Wisconsin TIMOTHY <E. WIRTH, Colorado CLAUDINE SCHNEIDER, Rhode Island DOUG WALGREN, Pennsylvania SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York DAN GLICKMAN, Kansas TOM LEWIS, Florida ROBERT A. YOUNG, Missouri DON RTTTER, Pennsylvania HAROLD L. VOLKMER, Missouri SID W. MORRISON, Washington BILL NELSON, Florida RON PACKARD, California STAN LUNDINE, New York JAN MEYERS, Kansas RALPH M. HALL, Texas ROBERT C. SMITH, New Hampshire DAVE McCURDY, Oklahoma PAUL B. HENRY, Michigan NORMAN Y. MINETA, California HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois BUDDY MACKAY, Florida" WILLIAM W. COBEY, JR., North Carolina TIM VALENTINE, North Carolina JOE BARTON, Texas HARRY M. REID, Nevada D. FRENCH SLAUGHTER, JR., Virginia ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey DAVID S. MONSON, Utah RICK BOUCHER, Virginia TERRY BRUCE, Illinois RICHARD H. STALLINGS, Idaho BART GORDON, Tennessee JAMES A. TRAFICANT, JR., Ohio JIM CHAPMAN, Texas HAROLD P. HANSON, Executive Director ROBERT C. KETCHAM, General Counsel REGINA A. DAVIS, Chief Clerk R. THOMAS WEIMER, Republican Staff Director 'Ranking Republican Member. "Serving on Committee on the Budget for 99th Congress. COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES JAMES A. McCLURE, Idaho, Chairman MARK O. HATFIELD, Oregon J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, Louisiana LOWELL P. WEICKER, JR., Connecticut DALE BUMPERS, Arkansas PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico WENDELL H. FORD, Kentucky MALCOLM WALLOP, Wyoming HOWARD M. METZENBAUM, Ohio JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia JOHN MELCHER, Montana FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, Alaska BILL BRADLEY, New Jersey DON NICKLES, Oklahoma JEFF BLNGAMAN, New Mexico CHIC HECHT, Nevada JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia DANIEL J. EVANS, Washington FRANK M. CUSHINO, Staff Director GABY G. ELLSWORTH, Chief Counsel D. MICHAEL HARVEY, Chief Counsel for the Minority SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico, Chairman JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia WENDELL H. FORD, Kentucky CMC HECHT, Nevada DALE BUMPERS, Arkansas. DANIEL J. EVANS, Washington HOWARD M. METZENBAUM, Ohio MALCOLM WALLOP, Wyoming JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia JAMES A. MCCLURE and J. BENNETT JOHNSTON are Ex Officio Members of the Subcommittee MARILYN MEIGS, Professional Staff Member <n> CONTENTS WITNESSES September 4, 1986: Page Ray G. Romatowski, Operations Manager, Albuquerque Operations Office, U.S. Department of Energy 7 Dr. James Decker, Deputy Director of Energy Research, U.S. Department of Energy 8 Dr. Erich Bloch, Director, National Science Foundation 29 Dr. Siegfried S. Hecker, director, Los Alamos National Laboratory; and Irwin Welber, president, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 93 Jack B. McConnell, M.D., corporate director. Advanced Technology, John­ son & Johnson; Dr. John P. McTague, vice president—research, Ford Motor Co.; Don Silva, Science & Engineering Associates, Inc.; and Dr. Raymond Radosevich, dean and professor of management, Robert O. Anderson Schools of Management, University of New Mexico 148 Appendix—Additional material submitted for the record 191 (m) TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1986 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; AND U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, Washington, DC. The committees met in joint session, pursuant to notice, at 9:20 a.m., at the Convention Center, Albuquerque, NM, Hon. Pete V. Domenici (chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy Re­ search and Development) presiding. Senator DOMENICI. Good morning. The hearing will please come to order. Let me first apologize. It seems to us up here that something is wrong with the lighting, but we can't do anything about it. You're in the light and we're in the dark, and the more I think of it, that might be quite apropros. [Laughter.] This is a hearing of two committees of the Congress, one from the U.S. Senate and one from the U.S. House. On the Senate side, the Energy Committee has a Subcommittee on Research and Devel­ opment, which I chair. Senator Bingaman is on the committee, and so we are here in that capacity. Our good friend, Congressman Lujan, is the ranking member of the House Committee on Science and Technology, ana he joins us here in that capacity, representing that committee. Is that correct, Manny? Mr. LUJAN. Correct. Senator DOMENICI. And so what we will do is we will proceed in the normal manner that we would official hearings. We don't have a lot of time. Nonetheless, we want to accomplish what we set out to do and to hear what the witnesses desire to discuss with the Congress through the committees that are represented here. Our normal approach is that we have some opening statements that set the parameters for why we are having the hearing, and with your indulgence and the indulgence of the three witnesses who are already seated, we're going to have brief opening state­ ments and then we'll proceed to the witnesses. I think what I will do is yield to the Congressman for opening remarks on his part, then to my friend, Senator Bingaman, and then I will have Drief opening remarks and we'll proceed with the witnesses. Congressman Lujan. Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Senator Domenici and Mr. Chairman, and Senator Bingaman. I am pleased to join you at this (l) 2 hearing in conjunction with the Focus '86 Conference. The confer­ ence is properly named and held in 1986 because throughout the 99th Congress our focus has been on technology transfer. Commercialization of Federal laboratory technology has been of great interest to the Science and Technology Committee for a long time. For nearly a decade, we have promoted mechanisms whereby the fruits of basic research, funded by taxpayer dollars, can be dis­ seminated to the American industrial enterprise, thereby enhanc­ ing our economy and advancing the United States in the world <• marketplace. More recently, the Science Committee has been eager to cooper­ ate with the Reagan administration in fostering cooperative rela­ tionships with industry and with the Federal Government and the U.S. academic institutions. We have witnessed an increase in such arrangements particularly through the National Supercomputer Centers and the Engineering Research Centers sponsored through the National Science Foundation and Dr. Bloch. As recently as 1985, the President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness issued a study on global completion which highlighted the fact that U.S. technology is and has been our strongest competitive advan­ tage. Some 18 billion of Government-sponsored R&D, nearly one- third of the total, is conducted in our Federal laboratories, of which there is more than 700. Over the years, these labs have produced over 28,000 Federal pat­ ents, but only 5 percent of them have been licensed. It's no wonder, then, that the Congress has taken an interest in seeing to it that incentives are present within the Federal Government to transfer this wealth of technology. I have always been of the opinion that all Federal research, except classified defense research, of course, should end up in the private sector somehow. It's the goal of this hearing to examine technology transfer issues from the standpoint of both public and the private sector. I am grateful to the witnesses who will appear before this Committee today for their interest and the commitment they have shown. Further, I am interested in exploring how various Federal agen­ cies and labs can encourage technology transfer while maintaining the integrity and mission they have been chartered with. For ex­ ample, the Department of Energy has the authority to issue waiv­ ers on patents so that the private sector can make use of certain inventions. Very few waivers have been issued, and those that have been issued have taken a relatively long time. So I hope that we can address this topic and come to a better understanding of the DOE role in technology transfer. With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to a very productive and thought-provoking hearing. Thank you very much. Senator DOMENICI. Thank you very much, Congressman Lujan. Senator Bingaman. Senator BINGAMAN. Thank you very much, Senator, and Con­ gressman Lujan. I appreciate the chance to be here, and I com­ mend both of you for holding the hearing. My concerns are the same as those that Congressman Lujan just expressed, and I am sure Senator Domenici will also discuss, and that is how do we take the tremendous investment that we're making in our national laboratories, and in our defense research in 3 particular, and use that to get the commercial benefits that are needed in order to keep this country in the position it needs to be in in the world economy. The Federal Government today contributes over $50 billion an­ nually to research and development, which is about half of the total national investment in research and development. If you add both the contractor-operated and the Government-operated labora­ tories together, we have about 18 billion dollars that we are spend­ ing in the Federal Government on our national laboratories. We employ about one-sixth of the nation's scientists and engineers in those laboratories.