Ranking Member Emphasizes Need for Robust R&D Funding at Subcommittee Hearing
(Washington, DC) - Today the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held an Energy Subcommittee hearing to discuss the benefits of and challenges to developing the next generation of supercomputers and, more broadly, the need for greater federal investments in research and development.
The witness panel testifying before the subcommittee included longtime advisor to the Committee and friend of the Ranking Member, Mr. Norman Augustine. He is the former Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, and he previously chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee that produced the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report in 2005.
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said, “America has historically been a leader in advancing new energy technologies, as well as the foundational sciences of physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and computational science that support energy innovation. But our leadership in technology is challenged by the growing investments of other countries in education and research – investments that are now projected to quickly outpace our own investments here at home.”
She continued, “The Rising Above the Gathering Storm report laid the foundation for one of our Committee’s landmark bipartisan achievements, the America COMPETES Act of 2007, which we reauthorized in 2010, and I hope the next reauthorization is a top priority for the Committee in this new Congress.”
Mr. Augustine said in response to the Ranking Member, “I think America COMPETES is perhaps the most important thing this Committee could take on. It drew more attention to the problems we face in this area and took further steps to improving the situation than anything else I’m aware of that we’ve done.”
Mr. Augustine also said in his testimony, “It is through research that scientists discover knowledge that enables engineers to create new products and services that, through the efforts of entrepreneurs, are introduced into the market to better people’s lives… The extent of America’s disinvestment in research is such that America now ranks 29th among developed nations in the fraction of research that is governmentally funded. It is projected that within about five years China will surpass the U.S. in both research funding as a fraction of GDP and absolute funding. This does not portend well for national security, jobs, the economy or the physical health of the citizenry.”
Other witnesses on the panel included Dr. Roscoe Giles, Chairman of the Department of Energy Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee; Mr. David Turek, Vice President of Technical Computing at IBM; and Dr. James Crowley, Executive Director of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
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