Baird Introduces Bills to Increase Country's Global Competitiveness, Support Scientific R&D
House Committee on Science and Technology Research and Science Education Subcommittee Chairman Brian Baird (D-WA) has introduced two bills aimed at increasing America’s global competitiveness, and scientific research and development. Both bills have been referred to the Committee.
The High-Performance Computing Act, which was introduced with the co-sponsorship of Rep. Judy Biggert who proposed similar legislation during both the 108th and 109th Congress, would improve the planning and coordination for the interagency research and development program in information technology established by the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991. It would also focus more attention within the interagency program on high-performance computing in support of computational science and engineering.
"The United States is still highly competitive in high-performance computing capabilities, but we need to improve our planning and coordination of information technology," said Chairman Baird. "This bill will help develop and deploy the high-end systems necessary to ensure the U.S. research community has access to the most up-to-date and advanced computing systems."
The Federal Government promotes high-performance computing in several ways. First, it funds research and development at universities, government laboratories, and companies to develop new computer hardware and software. Second, it funds the purchase of high-performance computers for universities and government laboratories. And finally, it provides researchers access to the computers at universities and government laboratories.
The High Performance Computing Act amends the 1991 Act in several ways:
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Basic Research: The bill specifies that the interagency program should support long-term basic research, as well as applied research and development.
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High-End Computing: The bill requires the National Science Foundation to provide researchers access to high-end computing systems.
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Large Scale Applications: The bill requires that scientists and researchers working on problems with broad economic or scientific impact, whose solution will require the application of high-performance computing resources and multidisciplinary teams of researchers, have access to these systems.
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Program Planning: The bill specifies that the external advisory committee for the program must carry out biennial reviews of the funding, content and management of the interagency research and development program, and report its findings to Congress.
The second bill would implement the recommendations of a National Academy of Sciences report that the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) develop guidance for research and development agencies on how to support equipment and instrumentation that falls above the range of what can be purchased under normal research grants, and is below the threshold for a major facility.
Currently, universities find it challenging to acquire support and investment from the Federal Government for advanced instrumentation used in scientific, engineering and medical research. The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy are among the primary federal agencies that support advanced research instrumentation and facilities. However, there is no general instrumentation program at either agency that supports instrumentation with capital costs between $2 million and several tens of millions of dollars.
"As we continue to look for ways to increase our country’s competitiveness in scientific research and development, it is critical that scientists have the tools and equipment they need to solve today’s critical research problems," said Chairman Baird. "It is extremely difficult for universities or research facilities to acquire the necessary funding for advanced equipment and instrumentation. This bill will help develop guidelines for research and development agencies on how to get the equipment, instrumentation, and financial support they need."
Advanced research instrumentation and facilities are distinguished from other types of instrumentation in that they are more commonly used by large-scale research centers or programs, and not by individual scientists. In recent years, the instrumentation needs of the nation’s research communities have changed. There is now a need for entirely new types of instruments, such as networks, computational tools, surveys and distributed sensor systems. The need for these types of instruments and facilities has broadened, crossing scientific, engineering, and medical disciplines so that instruments that were once of interest only to specialists are not required by scientists in a wide array of disciplines to solve critical research problems.
The bill would require that the OSTP, through the National Science and Technology Council, develop best practices among federal agencies that fund academic research for the support of advanced research instrumentation and facilities and to encourage the establishment of centralized programs to fund such acquisitions.
Specifically, the bill would also require the OSTP to implement consistent policies among agencies for federal support of advanced research instrumentation and facilities, including:
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Policies for support of operations and maintenance costs, and for support of the career development of technical research support staff;
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Guidelines for achieving a balance between research support costs and the costs of acquisition, operations and maintenance of advanced research instrumentation, and;
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Procedures to fund the acquisition and support costs of advanced research instrumentation and facilities.
And finally, the bill would require a report to Congress on the coordination and policy implementation requirements.
The Committee expects to act on both of these bills soon. The High-Performance Computing Act is tentatively scheduled for mark-up on February 28, 2007.
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