good morning the committee will come to order pursuant to notice a committee on science technology makes to consider the following measures h r thirty to forty six the advanced vehicle technology act of two thousand and nine  thirty one sixty five the wind energy research and development act of two thousand and eight thirty twenty nine to establish a research development and technology demonstration program to improve the efficiency of gas turbines used in combined cycle power generation systems and h r thirty to forty seven to establish a social behavioral science research program at the department or g and for other purposes we now we will now proceed with the markup this morning the committee will consider four bills h r thirty to authorizes research and development own vehicles with the goal of reducing or eliminating petroleum fuel use and their associated emissions will also consider h r thirty one sixty five the wind energy research and development act of two thousand  thirty twenty nine a bill to authorize r and d and to improve the efficiency of gas turbines both of these bills authored by mr taco h r thirty one sixty five authorizes or indeed when our specific areas of d word then a fire in a recent report by the department of energy and there can win in a g association describing the areas of improvements needed if we are to expand wind power electricity generation currently fifteen percent of our electric power is produced from natural gas over the next decade this percentage is predicted to double the research and development authorized in h r thirty twenty nine is intended to improve the efficiency of turbines used in these combined power generation systems will be we will be marking up h r thirty to forty seven a bill to establish a social behavioral research program at the department of energy h r thirty to forty seven was introduced by dr baird who has been a champion of these areas of research throughout his service on the committee people determine the success or failure of new technologies it's important to understand why some technologies are more readily adopted than others and it's important that we communicate to the public clearly about the challenges and can statements in the record at any point and we will move on now to consider h r thirty to forty six the advance vehicle technology act of two thousand and nine recognize the gentleman from michigan mr impact on the automobile industry automobile and truck manufacturers and parts suppliers around the globe are struggling to deal with substantially decreased demand in vehicle sales at the same time we're in the midst of a transformation to a more energy independent economy which will require the production of new vehicle technologies that will increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions development of advanced technologies for both heavy duty trucks and passenger vehicles is a vital national investment and requires coordinated effort at the federal level that's why i'm proud to have worked with chairman gorton to introduce the advanced vehicle technology act of two thousand and nine this legislation will build upon the current research efforts of the department of energy and the private  sector providing an increased federal investment in passenger and heavy duty vehicle research and development by directing the department of energy to partner with industry stakeholders and agencies across the federal government the bill will ensure that our investment leverage is the maximum amount of talent and innovation and leads to faster development of new technologies that will help us meet our energy challenges most american innovation in advanced vehicle technology fields ultimately this legislation will support job retention and creation in this critical high paying field of companies around the country i represent a state in a region that has been particularly hard hit by this economic crisis so i certainly understand very well that every job will be saved and created by this bill is extremely valuable this legislation is supported by chrysler which is headquartered in my congressional district also by general motors ford motor company the u a w the motor any quit manufacturers association and industry trade groups  representing auto parts suppliers as well as key suppliers in my district like carbon merit or magna international and bosch mr chairman i do have an amendment in the nature of a substitute would be appropriate to discuss that not at this time but we will get to mr chairman i'm generally supportive of h r thirty to forty six the cost of the bail gives me problems but also understand the costs associated with the level of decree and scope of the bill the purpose is to help reduce our dependence on foreign imports of all true and advanced technologies to make our vehicles not only more efficient but also competitive while use now turnkey fields and technologies and know we need to do that as as well  targets restart for medium to heavy duty commercial and transit vehicles name advanced technologies own long haul class a trailer platform i'd like to thank mr peters for working with us to incorporate some important point and this bill does coordinate that but also expands the scope of stakeholders or companies that can get involved in research and development in the past a lot of that r and d has been done primarily by the large companies chrysler coordinated through that but also expand the reach of research and development into those smaller companies that have talent at considerable amount of ingenuity to what is already being done with the other thing that is different in this bill that in the past there's more of a focus on the heavy duty trucks medium and heavy duty trucks which has been part of efforts in the past but it's always been kind of a stepchild it hasn't had the kind of attention that it deserves and if you're looking for your best bang for your dollar of your research dollars there's a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to increase efficiency of heavy trucks focus on that as a director of it to make sure that we are coordinating those research dollars appropriately and making sure that truck manufacturers get research dollars that they didn't have before because again that's going to be an area where we think we can get great efficiencies and lower the cost of transportation to the economy as a whole so i'm certainly very conscious as well of the cost of government and being involved in these programs but to me this is kind of like you want to put in those are indeed dollars because you're going to have a great return on your investment i know that's real with that as well but we do have to make sure going to the right companies and that's been a major focus of the bill and i thank gentlemen and i think he does make a good point about the commercial and off road equipment a lot of the technologies that are appropriate for the automobile industry that we've already developed are not technologies that transfer to that other sector of our  am offering an amendment in the nature of a substitute which makes a series of mostly minor and clarifying changes to the bill and is the product of considerable discussion with a variety of stakeholders mr hall mr inglis mrs bigger a minority staff more particularly helpful in improving this legislation and provided valuable input especially in the areas of natural gas vehicles and all of your comments and help to substitute includes the following notable changes section one  one we added to the list of research areas the programs should pursue hydraulic hybrid energy storage component and subsystem manufacturing turbo boosting predictive engineering natural gas storage systems and novel non chemical energy storage devices we sought to ensure that department reaches out to a broad spectrum of industry stakeholders with research and development capabilities in the u s we also sought to ensure that the secretary would develop more efficient processes for transferring technologies to industry in coordinating activities among the various and interagency partnered partners the secretary would not duplicate the activities of various partners to make sure that coordination is there as was raised in section  three we added the production of lightweight composites and high pressure natural gas storage tanks to the list of manufacturing r and d areas title two pertains to technology development for medium to heavy duty commercial and transit vehicles and the  both natural gas and hydrogen technologies to the list of critical research areas also further recognizes the difficulty in establishing performance metrics for the wide range of medium and heavy truck platforms which operate under some very unique conditions and clarifies that the secretary should consider these operating conditions when testing and evaluating our vehicles again i'd like to thank the chairman and his staff for the leadership and their hard work for both us amendments and substitutes and the underlying legislation but i also like to say in particular my republican counterparts and especially on this is bigger for working with me to provide for this very important bill and i appreciate the committee's consideration of this amendment in the nature of a substitute and encourage its passage as and assistance with the manager's amendment before us today i really appreciate it as the original co sponsor of the bill i certainly urge my colleagues to support the manager's amendment before us and this amendment  important industry and research supported supported changes to the bill that will foster constructive collaboration and cooperation between the public and the private sector is needed to support the deployment of new standards and technologies for autos trucks and heavy equipment i think we can make significant drives in transformational areas such as hybrid electrical vehicles advanced batteries energy storage hydrogen energy and gins and fuel cells w coordinated and consistent research efforts the advanced vehicle technology that will facilitate this technology transformation for vehicles and and most more importantly they have the equipment sector as i said last markup the medium heavy duty and non valid provisions in a thirty to forty six particularly important i've had i've had the opportunity to drive a front loader and i think that that basket will carry relative to the way that they perform on job sites all the while optimizing performance safety and operational standards so with increased r and d we will be able to increase manufacturing flexibility to adapt and produce new and different forms of equipment needed to meet future demand so this will be achieved through a total of systems approach to equipment productivity and efficiency with a focus on components and structures not just the engine itself so i again i think represent a peters success the one which else wish to be recognized mr obama i'm supporting this bill but i do want to call attention to what we are accomplishing by comes from those trucks out operation we need to perfect our technology but we must know that we perfect truck we also are making  more competitive with other modes of transportation for containers and perhaps we don't want to have a system in the united states any longer where containers are taken long haul on our freeways which of course have a lot of weight on the freeways and cause the degeneration those roads this legislation while making trucks more efficient which is a good thing that has an impact on other areas and that is do we want to have more or just as many trucks on the road hauling containers or do we want to try to develop the container movement systems that will not put that strain on the road today by passing this we are bolstering the argument of bolstering the alternative of having more truck delivery containers long haul in our country so i will support this i do believe moving forward in making those alternatives available is not necessarily a bad thing but i myself am trying to find a way of developing container movement systems that will get those trucks off the road so thank you very much mr chairman thank you mr barker have a suggestion on that and that is to move some of those plants to texas and tennessee and then you'd have to have less going through your district so we would welcome that is anyone ok mr bilbrey chairman i guess you hear from the serving caucus morning as always in all fairness my colleagues maybe this committee should be briefed at the different technology that is very antiquated very dirty which is trying trying local motives are working off sixty seven year old technology diesel electric and the life expectancy of these vehicles are for another hundred years  the concept of using natural gas using cleaner fuel rather than diesel is absolutely essential but i have to remind my colleague that the off road component here is very compatible to the use of natural gas because you athlete operations where  efficient very clean and it is sad that that technology hasn't been moved forward or encourage more it sort of been a blind side for us and i think that as we move forward we need address that i just like to bring up one of the items that we always need to talk about when we talk about al e fuels and practical application of it is the creation of the infrastructure to provide the fuel itself one of the things we've overlooked when we talk about natural gas is that the overwhelming majority of homes and urban areas are now plumbed with natural gas but we never think about more research and more encouragement of home dispensing of people being able to fuel up while they sleep in their home not having to create a whole new separate infrastructure as you do with other fuels but utilizing the ones in there and that home dispensing is something that i think we need to be looking at more and more not that one nine hundred ninety s and one nine hundred ninety when i drove a natural gas that home dispensing wasn't available but the cost of it hadn't been brought down to a level where a lot of people would prefer so i just bring that up again don't look right past your own water heater when you're looking for alternative energy and i thank you mr weber you know i would suggest that you might get with able was with chappel and chris king and talk about that and see if there's you know if there is some research or something that we want to do in that area does anyone else wish to be recognized mr english is recognized thank you mr chairman and i'd like to voice  support for the substitute and thank you mr peters for including language that ensures that all domestic manufacturers including those owned by companies based abroad can participate in this vehicle r and d program  it's a wonderful opportunity engage all automotive manufacturers are developing cutting edge vehicle technology and employing people of all of the united states you will recall that we had testimony from representative of b is doing fabulous work at clemson university's international center of automotive research in the upstate of south carolina and advancing vehicle technology in a number of ways working hard to bring us products like cost effective it bans technologies for wide scale you lose asian through the passenger commercial government and transit vehicle sectors h r thirty forty six states that the united states transportation sector is over ninety five percent depended upon but slowly and over sixty percent of petroleum demand is met right imported surprise it cost less to about oil from saudi arabia and use it in the put petroleum burning vehicles and it does to innovate  right now it is cost prohibitive to build new big vehicles that are more fuel efficient so we need to make sure that technology is in the process he's developed as a result of this bill are attractive to industry as a  subcommittee chair of water and transportation committee i do care deeply about how well we are innovating especially when it comes to our passenger commercial and transit vehicles it is great to develop new technologies that lead to improved fuel efficiency and fewer greenhouse gases emissions however we must ensure that investments in advance because it balances yield results that translate into a broad you live asian by the transportation  committee favorably report h r thirty to forty six as amended to the house with a recommendation that the bill to pass furthermore i move that staff be instructed to prepare the legislative report and make necessary technical and conforming changes and that the chairman take all research and development act of two thousand and nine the department of energy published a report that examines the technical feasibility of using wind energy to generate twenty percent of the nation's electricity demand by twenty thirty in response to the d report the american wind energy association published a report indicating that in order to reach that twenty percent goal by twenty thirty our nation must provide more funding for wind energy research and development and other wind related programs therefore this bill the wind energy research and development act of two thousand and nine which is endorsed by the american wind energy association will give the secretary of energy the authority to implement a program of research and development to improve the efficiency the reliability and the capacity of wind turbines as well as optimize the design and adaptability of wind systems ultimately this will reduce the cost of construction of generation and maintenance of systems the program will focus on research and development of making materials larger lighter more reliable and more affordable it will also work towards improving gearbox reliability and performance reducing manufacturing cost and advancing computational modeling tools amongst other things this bill provides two hundred million dollars a year for fiscal years twenty ten twenty fourteen and i'm out that is directly in line with the dia we an a w a reports and will help ensure a diversity of players in the wind r and d market mr chair i know that my colleagues mr smith mr mccall mr no power and mr bartlett have amendments to this bill i thank them for their import and  wind energy is men and continues to be a very important part of the electricity generating portfolio in this country and particularly in my home state of texas which is by the way the largest producer of of wind energy in the country  debate looking closely at it just like we need to look at solar for the future you know a million bucks for each one of these fans is what i've heard they cost it takes a long time to get their money back in and some question about productivity even  important renewable energy sources very important and we need to keep working and trying to get it hooked up to where it's beneficial to the greatest good for the greatest number does anyone else wish to be recognized not big that was not a freudian slip it was actually but i am concerned as i mentioned in other other legislation that we are authorizing here and i think it is important that we as we authorize this we authorize it in a way that we give the  expand the research in to that as well the other is that we need to make sure that we bring all of the partners together in this basically also includes that would allow universities to be partners in this process and i think that's an important part of that also there is a demonstration project called for in this particular legislation and while people think all wind is the same all wind is not the same in the winter in certain parts of the country are different than other  areas of the country so i think it'll be important in the demonstration project to make sure that we have a diversity in the low geographical location of these programs to assess and certainly wind is a piece of that i'm shoulders been but there are new technologies or existing technologies that we continue to see in this country and i think we should continue to move in that direction and separate from this doesn't specifically address it in the in the bill but i think there's a reference there in the development i just asked a whole committee to understand that separate from the particulars i hope to move forward with some general research in advance composites and here is a technology where composite technology could make a huge leap not only the efficiency but also the size the application everything else so i bring this up so in the future when we start talking about  from texas always talks about and point out that with the national nanotechnology initiative we took a major step in terms of composites i think that's where we're going to see the breakthroughs and that was a very good bil concerns reside not only in rural nebraska but across the country as well in order to become truly energy independent we must continue to explore all forms of energy renewable energy including wind mr chairman i appreciate representative tom cole in the committee's work on wind energy are indeed has regulations specifying the inclusion of minority groups in its research development and education programs like to see research program officials work more closely with the office of economic impact and diversity many of the professionals who will be applying for these grants are engineers only three point two percent of the ph d engineers in this country are african american i could not even find statistics on th today and our education of employees and v o a supported national labs it would be good to know what percentage of scientists working in the national labs are minorities i say this only because it means a great deal of impact on this nation in the future shell and cooperate greater transparency with regard to its own workforce that is funded by the way with taxpayers money i would like also to see greater effort by the department of energy program directors to reach out to small minority owned businesses to inform them of these funding opportunities in order to do that there shall be a smoother coordination with the office of economic impact and diversity my growing rapidly the united states alone can already power seven million homes to the power of when i support this bill because more is needed to accelerate our harvest of wind energy into electricity bill calls for a program on wind energy research and development and a demonstration program and wind energy to provide important opportunities for researchers to contribute to this challenging yet essential process this event would assure that any money is distributed under this actor award on a competitive basis in order to your quality and efficiency as well as job growth and economic development competition will ensure the greatest benefit the tax payers at the least expense and i yield back mr chairman is a father discussion on the m chairman my man is simple it attempts to make sure that the sneer program created by this bill coordinates with already existing when energy programs at the department of energy i believe the united states needs to explore all possible energy sources to increase our energy independence and our reliance on foreign sources however we should make sure that when creating new federal programs we are not duplicating past efforts or the ongoing efforts of existing programs that way each program advances our understanding and brings the technology closer to the point where becomes economically viable and able to rely we deliver power so my moment to make sure that this program advances our understanding of one power rather than simply repeating the efforts of the past and thank the members of the committee for their amendments and as i indicated earlier am in support of those amendments i also would ask that a letter from the sustainable energy and environment coalition in the house  put into the record of these proceedings and it is a letter of support for the given legislation if no objection the letter be made a part of the record are there other amendments if no the vote is on the bill h thirty one sixty five as admitted all those in favor say aye aye all those posts i know the pain of chairs the as having now recognized mr tomko for motion thank you chairman gorton i move that the committee favorably report r thirty one sixty five as amended to the house with the recommendation that the bill to pass for the more i move that staff be instructed to prepare the legislative report and make necessary technical and conforming changes and that the chair take all that objection the motion is weakened is reconsider is laid upon the table members will have two subsequent calendar days in which to submit supplemental minority or additional views on the measure we will now consider h r thirty twenty nine to establish a res development and technology demonstration program to improve the efficiency of gas turbines used in combined cycle power generation systems recognize a gentleman from new york to talk about scrabble thank you mr chair you just highlighted the core substance of h thirty twenty nine this legislation is vital if our country is once again going to be an energy technology leader in the world currently the united states uses natural gas for nearly twenty percent of its power generation the most advanced gas turbines based systems at this time are capable of reaching sixty percent efficiency the goal of this bill is for those same turbans to achieve sixty five percent combined cycle efficiency a one percentage point improvement in efficiency would result in c o t t two emissions reductions of four point four million tons per year and substantial reductions in other emissions such as knox and sachs the energy and fuel savings created by more efficient turbans will help ratepayers save more than a billion dollars per year in fuel costs deployment of a sixty five percent efficient gas turbine throughout the country would result in significant reductions in fuel use leading to savings in electricity costs some one hundred eighty billion dollars to the year twenty forty in addition to the environmental benefits energy and fuel savings this bill promotes united states technology leadership putting the united states in a position to assume a greater share of the worldwide energy market by creating and retaining high value domestic jobs in turban manufacturing chairman i support three zero two nine to stablish a research and development and technology demonstration program to improve the efficiency of gas turbines use and combine cycle power generation systems with a footnote i'll admit at first i was a little apprehensive and that it seemed as though the bill would benefit one company but we've been assured this is not the case my colleague mr bilbray will also be offering an amendment that expand the number of entities eligible to participate in the program while i would have preferred a hearing to discuss the merits of this bail before its last minute inclusion in the waxman market cap and trade bill and before the submitted subcommittee markup last week point and that the members proceed with the minutes of the or the roster that objection so ordered the first amendment on the rosters amendment offered by the gentleman from california mr bilbray are you ready to proceed with your memo yes mr chairman i have a membership of the desk the clerk report the that gentleman from california to explain is scuse me mr chairman once a mayor always such a mayor it's hard not to start it first of all for public disclosure i want to make it clear that as far as i know i own no stock of natural gas in any form  but i do take exception to the committee's report on paragraph two on this bill where it makes a reference to the fact that the the use of natural gas for electrical generation produces generally cleaner let me say this it is extremely cleaner than other fossil fuels so just for the record i want to let everybody know this is a great technology from the air pollution point of view my amendment just tries to make sure that the research does take out just large units but also recognize that we need a diversity in units especially the fact mr chairman that we're going to need natural gas to be able to fill the gap between those other zero emission technologies that are available can be larger and fill those gaps and to where you can have smaller units that are much closer to the source of consumption does reducing the inefficiency of trance long transmission this research just sort of gives the flexibility that we should be looking at large medium and small and not restricted to one size and without basically it's self explanatory this is an application that i think we're going to find not just in megacities applications and those rural areas that will will need businesses and universities to participate and help shape the program by requiring the secretary of energy to solicit grants and contract proposals from industry universities and other appropriate parties the addition of as florida turbine technology and universities such as the university of central florida can provide valuable expertise and real world experience that can make substantial contributions to research programs and the overall energy sector investing in improving the efficiency of abundant domestic energy sources such as natural gas and harnessing the innovative capabilities of small business and universities is vital to developing new technologies that will create jobs nothing in my language that would prohibit that i just wondered if there was in the bill or why that was or why they would have been included in the amendment i didn't consider but i don't think there's anything in my amendment that would prevent that from being  passed furthermore i move that staff be instructed to prepare the legislative report and make necessary technical and conforming changes and that the chair take all necessary steps to bring the bill before the house for consideration not go the questions on the motion to supplemental minority or additional views on the measure we will now consider h r thirty to forty seven to establish a social behavioral sciences research program at the department of energy and for other purposes i recognize the gentleman from washington  present in remarks on the bill i thank the chairman in the prior committee i had the privilege to chair a prior subcommittee the research and education subcommittee we had a number of hearings on the role of social science in confronting some of our great challenges facing our country that included national security energy and health care the general sense of the testimony in those hearings was clear that in many cases we can have our most effective in or interventions from the social behavioral realm and we've recently heard testimony for example on smart read just last week that suggest social and behavioral aspects of adoption of smart grid will be important and the committee report and referring to mr bilbray concern about the proposal which i think makes sense about natural gas we've heard testimony that adoption of natural gas as a fuel source will require certain behavioral adaptations as people have concerns about safety etc and try to adopt to a new technology that concern however is that we don't have a coordinated effort within the department of energy to address social and behavioral applications of any of our energy technologies or the adoption of those and that is the purpose of the legislation before us today to correct that i very small investment relative to the other things we discuss on this committee and relative to the return on investment and hence i think a well spent use of the taxpayer dollars because if you were to ask today what the single quickest thing we could do to reduce energy consumption in america today would be it is not develop new photovoltaic i mean today as of this date it is not developed it is not install new wind energy it is not develop algal fuel production it is change our behavior and yet we don't do it as a result we would maintain dependence on foreign dictators my colleagues who are concerned about national security as i think we all are should ask themselves what impact it would have on our within a job and about chavez and other petro dictators if we could lower fuel consumption by twenty percent in this country it would break their knees and we don't have to develop  any of these new technologies to achieve that we just need to change our behavior the problem is we don't and interestingly enough we're not very smart about how to get people to change their behavior though the research exists and i'd be happy to talk about that later on in response to to forty seven unnecessarily i think authorizes sixty million dollars and grants over the six years it d o a for research that can be done at the national science foundation then that they have already has the authority to fund this type of research and and is the primary federal funding source for social behavioral and economic sciences n s f is already conducting research to the tune of two hundred forty funding may be currently may be used and some of it is being used on s b research and addressing energy consumption in our current economic environment while our national debt level and point six tr i don't think we need to be thrown sixty million dollars at a duplicate the program as well as the zero is not the appropriate place for this on this program v o a does research in areas such as physics engineering about g m chemistry they do not focus on the kind of research it's called for in this mail in my opinion the department is already overwhelmed and they had another hour and a program that's better suited for another agency is not going to help them accomplish that type of science research  after the fact simply highlights the redundancy and unnecessary nature of such a program moreover the type of research is man done both publicly and privately just last week in the energy and environment subcommittee hearing on the smart grid the grid point witness stated in his testimony that and i quote studies have shown that simply providing consumers information about their energy use can lead to reductions in consumption of between ten to twenty  would just ask the author you know is there an intention here to get government to look at itself now one of the biggest names we have as those of us in government always point fingers that individuals must change industry must change i mean i look at this facility here we're still using polluting electricity is generated electricity i think if we want to set examples we should mandate that the speaker only buy a zero emission like tricity for this facility but if you want to reduce emissions there are scientists that show twenty five percent of mole emissions could be eliminated if government changed the way we do traffic circulation outside off right off ninety five percent of  the reason why and i'll tell you why is because we get pressured by constituents and can't say no to him every time they want to stop sign that why are four way stops allowed in this country rather than going to traffic circles there's a lot of these things that government ought to be doing and my just you know my concern is that we point to everyone else but we're not dictating or mandating that government looks at itself and changes the way we do business and maybe there's your bill can be used as a vehicle to first of all say what do we have to do to get elected officials brave enough to tell their constituents in a city council no ma'am i'm not going to put a stop sign in front of her house or no i'm not going to put a four way stop going to spend the money for a traffic circle and i would well i appreciate the gentleman inquiry in fact it's a good example we have abundant opportunities to reduce our own energy consumption in the capitol and in the office buildings here and we don't and offers to some to help achieve that have actually met with derision and rejection that's not a market forces show doesn't cost us a penny personally in fact we could save our constituents substantial amounts of money if we would be more efficient ourselves and yet people in this body don't do it in fact some make political hay and pride out of not doing it as if they take that as a source of pride to waste energy which is actually way think taxpayer dollars that's a behavioral issue now in fact i speak briefly to mr mr hall's premise the witness who testified about the research illustrates the point of doing the research to save resources it's quite the reverse what mr hall has said if we invest in research to improve the efficiency of energy use we can dramatically have return on investment let me give my dear friend from texas one example if i were to say to you that for no additional cost zero additional cost you can improve your energy efficiency by thirty percent and reduce your water consumption by thirty percent for no additional cost would you be interested in that and i don't think his sixty isn't million or billion dollars it's million but what would the return on investment for this country below the savings for this country be if we could reduce energy consumption by thirty percent or reduce and increase or reduce water use maybe i'll address later on this rubberized question the point again is this bilbray you're exactly right we need to lead by example and we're not part of the reason we're not looking we don't look at our own selves and our own institution and  nothing but a political ploy and look fashionable but didn't get the job done because we'd have to confront the issue that to generate zero emission like tricity we've got to go hydroelectric or go nucular and we'd have to purchase from those facilities which didn't fill all political comfort level for some people rather than going to the good science and set an example i think the fact that if we can't get zero emission like tricity for this capital on our own operation it sends a signal that maybe we ought to be learning by doing and that might make us more enlightened as we mandate on to the private sector and to the citizens so i just come back to this issue to what are we asking are we going to ask that we look into traffic circulation which governments are doing and and focus on all the things that government could be doing to clean up and and make the energy more efficient or are we just always passing it off to the individual in the private sector while we stay aloof and apart from the strategy  pursued perhaps better time we've just gone through a time when eighty five million social behavioral economics in the stimulus funding and that was the biggest giveaway i guess in the history of of our country and the biggest mistake we've made probably in the last fifty years so does need study and there are things that would urge it is a good doctor to come up with a bill that just think it's the wrong should accept any secondary amendment which which mr bilbray may offer to make the government a subject of the study also this is not a flavor of the week or a flash in the pan kind of thing the positions of people on this committee are long standing and well known mr rohrabacher does not like soft science which is how he characterizes some of these behavioral studies mr baird  be more than pleased if anyone wouldn't care to engage in this to engage in a serious discussion reclaiming our tyrants of the social sciences that i would not recommend it so people on both sides of the bait have their sensitivities  and longstanding positions it is my impression that there have been several studies and other observations that changes in human behavior based perhaps on education based perhaps on requirements but not necessarily a mandate of any kind can get a substantial savings in energy without substantial cost some examples are the apparently a couple of studies showing recently published that roughly twenty five percent of current residential energy consumption could be saved through behavior related energy changes there's also a study on  behavior with respect to tell in hotels and how much of an energy savings can come from reusing towels properly reusing towels it is my impression that we went to airbag technology at great cost substantially because people were not using three point harnesses in passenger cars and if we had better understood that phenomenon perhaps we might have  saved that cost in the automotive industry we are now looking at energy savings in consumer electronic products to have those products have automatic switches in them to reduce their energy use when they're not  if people just use the switch there would be that substantial savings or if it were redesigned so there are tremendous cost savings available i think that the  of scale that is deterring many of my friends on the other side of the aisle from supporting this if if the objection is to the sixty million dollars figure i would like folks to consider how much research money we spend on other projects before they come back with a counteroffer of what is an acceptable number to our friends on the other side of the aisle mr baird may or may not be amenable to a smaller number i can't speak for  know there are there's a very porton question of how much are we spending on other avenues of research which may or may not pay off because that's always the risk of research clean coal technology how much are we spending on that it sixty million dollars looks like a lot of money here and it is a lot of money but i submit to you that if we're going to get a whole lot of free savings it's worth looking into and back to balance my time high quality research would already included the consumer oriented information that can be obtained from good research with a gentleman yield yes that's precisely the trouble my friend one would think this but it's not testimony we've heard first of all d l a has knows best that survives program dealing extensive with behavioral and social applications of his work we've heard from research in abundant testimony my personal discussion with them etc that they do not routinely  integrate social and behavioral research and this is not just fluff i really want to underscore this if you want to develop a smart grid you're going to have to see how people interact with that grid i would just ask the gentleman parent that a cli if he is able don't take this personally i am not the program is v c r somebody and generic came up with this really wonderful gizmo and said well we're going to give this gizmo to everybody are going to program your v c r well figuring out how human beings interact with technology matters there is not a fighter jet united states of america that is not designed with human factors incorporated into that because we learned the hard way that if you bombard pilots with information in the middle of a dogfight they'll miss it we've got examples of pilots flying airplane flat out of fuel even though the black box says you're out of fuel you're out of fuel you're out of fuel pilot later on says i never heard it human factors really matter and the problem is if you have it over at an s f and not integrated to d o a they're not coordinated you've got somebody some engineer some physicist working on some piece of equipment but they're not saying how is this going to be adopted so there is it is not duplicated with respect to the gentleman from texas it is not duplicated it with n s f or with delia and that's why we've introduced it i thank the gentleman from wheeling so much time thank you reclaiming my time you're saying that a an entirely new i mean i i see where we've we've had other amendments that various programs whether it's minority issues or otherwise tweak those programs rather than start a new program with a new line item for the budget if you would care to be happy to respond to that that's precisely the point it's easy to tweak a program that is extant it is more difficult to tweak a program that is nonexistent by definition we believe that the question here  one of return on investment i think the evidence is clear in the research that the return on investment is dramatic but when lacked the information we need to achieve that return it's not just about the sixty million we will spend it is a substantial sum but relative to how much we have spent on fusion for example and how much we gain in terms of energy production on that it is paltry we have demonstrated research that we can save substantial amounts of energy with existing knowledge in social sciences and that we can improve further savings with further knowledge that's why we need to create a program that's why we need to integrate it with the other technologies that we've been discussing including natural gas fuel efficient vehicles wind energy etc so you know neugebauer example of wind energy we've got problems right off the coast where people are saying you can't build wind turbines off the coast that might be a great place to have when it is in fact my understanding but why are to my serving here as a pressure point in congress my most previous role was that as president and c e o of the nicer to the new york state energy research and development authority there was so much interaction with programs like this that would try to advance  progress in energy and environment policy that needed to embrace the human response the human element whether it was for sustainable outcomes or for market transformation opportunities or just for innovation purposes there is a need to make certain that the public is engaged in a way that enhances the opportunities we have before us sometimes technology can have a very elastic sort of character to it where it frightened society or where all the elements are truly understood and i think that the savings that can be achieved here not just economically but in the energy column are so great that this investment pales in comparison to those potential savings so i again commend the sponsor and baird is making are valid points that the behavioral piece of it and certainly can be a part of the solution i think where i am disagreeing is that allowing a another agency to get in sample different areas of government get into similar types of activities and there's not any coordination what's going on and what i can see happening here is that the national science foundation continues to work on its  research in these areas and now we're going to have the department of energy into it which by the way i'm not sure the department of energy has the expertise quite honestly to analyze and to look at in evaluate this kind of research i think they are probably  ch more adept at a wedding other kind of research but that's kind of how we get into the situation for example when the subject of education i'm told it when you look at the subject of education and you look through all of the federal agencies and hundreds of not thousands of education programs exist all throughout government and i got to believe that in many cases that that that some of those are duplicative and so i would say to the author i think that should be a piece of it i think where i'm going to fall on this particular piece of legislation is i don't believe in moving that research to another area of government i would  colleagues have asked the same duplicative question of other aspects of research clearly deal we and then s f if you look at high energy physics if you look at a host of other realms and s f engages in research the deal interesting mission here in this concern for all the other areas of research that n s f and engage in and i think that that's that's indicative again i just want to reiterate deal is mission i mean by its definition is to deal with the energy needs of this country social and behavioral issues our drivers of much of that energy need it's ironic instead of neglecting it we ought to be expanding it and i'm not going to ask for less i think we need to do more on settling on this need to have a hearing on where there is duplications i mean if we if we know of duplications going on right now and we're not doing something about it then i think we're being derelict in our duty and i'm certainly not to just picking this particular area but anywhere i think we could look at the  going on we should look into that jim is take texas time expired dr griffin is recognized thank you mr chairman that i want to rise and and support this as well i think we've got some success stories we can point to that specific funding and legislation by the federal government is worked think all of us who watched someone throw out a sack full of garbage from their car window recognizes our anti littering program has been very very successful in america and i think that's what dr barrett is pointing to a specific targeted  social research and behavior modification the bill by the way does not accept our leave out congressman so we're happy about that the other thing is that the smoking campaign that's been targeted was very difficult we still have twenty percent of america that will light a fire three inches from their nose and suck it down their throat now that's a difficult modification because it's an addictive substance but we are winning that because there are less than twenty percent of america smoking and they're not smoking because it's addictive or it causes cancer they're not smoking because they know that it's socially unacceptable behavior leon acceptable it smells bad and you're not acceptable in your community if you're a smoker now we can accomplish the same thing with energy conservation and while we don't while we don't save energy knowing full well how to save energy and i think dr barrett is targeted on target accolades to my colleague the author of this amendment there's no one who has been more cooperative and honest and hardworking and a good relationship with me over my twenty years and congressman brian baird and i appreciate that very much but i have to strongly oppose amendment today at some point controlling people's behavior and social engineering an office of propaganda app the department of energy designed to correct people's behavior in regard to energy use and i love say designing technology with human behavior in mind is pine trying to convince people and change and control their behavior in the control of their thoughts in terms of policy and in terms of the way they want to live their lives something totally different we're not taking polls to see if someone can design a new piece of equipment or what to put it in an automobile we're talking about trying to change people's behavior by controlling their thoughts about certain  s this bill is another step away from what i consider to be freedom and towards that type of control which i see as a threat to freedom i mean so we're going to have people being convinced that they have to accept the windmills offshore or in my district offshore oil drilling i happen to support offshore oil drilling but i'm not going to ask the people to come in with a gang of psychiatry is and try to convince my people that they're that if you need to be addressed today not by government employees but through the political system that we have where people make up their minds do we want single family homes to be portrayed as i was so inefficient that we have to  convince people to move into condominiums or apartment complexes because that's so much more energy efficient yeah and some automobiles are less energy efficient and people would rather have them for various reasons i drive a car that's very heavy and big because i have three children and i want to protect them now i don't need psychiatry to come and tell me what the cost effectiveness is of that example i was alluding to earlier with mr hall this is vicious freedom grabbing mind control at its most pernicious and i think he said it should desperately hide in fear because without a doubt the martians and the communists are right behind in your hotel when you're on the road you'll find a little notice that says hey do the right thing recycle your  or turn out that that message is not very effective and it turns out with a slight change of wording i e mind control one can increase the effectiveness of that by thirty percent just by changing the wording thirty percent increase in savings that's not been done before most hotels in america today use the inefficient wording we learned about the more efficient wording from social and behavioral research and it can save thirty percent of the fuel consumption and the water consumption and it's based on basic research applied and tested through hard science in the real world that's not mind control that's just trying to help people things differently for the good of the country now it's hyperbolic my friend from california to suggest this is a slippery slope to mind control where you know i've personally believe that the small car in america was killed because of a book called unsafe at any speed that implied to people that small cars are dead by definition on safe that cost us innumerable millions of billions of gallons of energy and oil independence on on foreign dictators  not talking mind control here we are i appreciate the gentleman's of knowledge meant that we ought to look at the human behavioral interaction with technology you know how thermostats are my thermostat for example tiny thing it's hard to read the damn thing at night so it's hard for me to set the temperature in dim light because it's an l c d screen and it's tiny letters so that's a disincentive for me to change how i use the thermostat now there are a host of other examples of that and you know finally in in world war two when roosevelt and others came to this country and said look our nation faces an existential crisis we are threatened by fascism and if we don't pull together the fate of humanity as we know what is at stake he inspired the nation to do the right thing and save and serve it set or maybe it was mind control maybe it saved the country and people pitch i think we have existential threats today and i think we ought to address them but we're not doing so very efficiently we can do so much more efficiently without mind control but by casting how we give information to people and there's abundant examples of it that's my professional way of expertise i could take it for five weeks through it if you wanted and we'd walk you through it not mind control but real examples of real world behavior change that is beneficial to the people involved and to our society that's what this bill is about thank general we respectfully decline that  when discussing the cap and trade bill and the jurisdiction and the chairman said that we would not waive the jurisdiction of this committee which then received a letter saying that that had been waived and we did not consider this type of legislation and now it's in the cap and trade bill and obviously from all the discussion this was something that should have been addressed in the in this in this committee and i you know i really worry about  having the jurisdiction and wave you know because you don't always get it back and i think that this is one issue that should have been discussed and maybe we would have had you know a different outcome in that in that bill but i do oppose t really have concerns that you know also in the cap and trade bill was a was something and i hope that there was discussion about taking it out but there was issue of people selling their homes and when they did that they had to have had to be energy if fission it and if it wasn't there was a fine for people that energy audit was going to come in and look at your house and see if it was an energy efficient and you could sell it then without having to pay a penalty i mean to me this is big brother and this is the type of thing where we get into this is social engineering or whatever you want to call it but i think that that we're working on research and development and that's what the deal we as focusing in they already you know the budget that we have for research and development some of it's been been used unfortunately like in the office of science for earmarks and that lowers the amount of money that they can use for research for example there's always people that every year come up with one and m r i machine and that costs a million dollars and there you know so this is taking away that money that's been budgeted for research and development i think this is another thing where you're going to have a director an advisory committee and it's go cost money and don't we really consider this or can't we ask our teenagers how to do this how to do the thermostat and how to do the things like that because they can do it right away maybe it is harder for some of us but we really need to look at that and and we have done so many bills in this committee on energy efficiency we've had started with a pack in two thousand and five all of the the the things that really help consumers and a lot of people took advantage of it  i chair the research and development caucus with rush holt it's a sold out caucus we meet once a once a month and there's all of the so many issues and so much directed to the consumers and how can can do things that are energy efficient we also i also share with mr carnahan the high performance building and so we're seeing so many people taking advantage of the the tax credits or tax deduction to be able to do this in my community a long time go there was a gentleman that started the recycling in in my in my town all by himself and it was so successful that obviously one of the big major companies came in and took it over but we know we can we can also rely on the creativity and the individuals that will be you know will be doing this so i would oppose this i think that we've got the national science foundation we've got people that are really caring about what what the environment is now and i don't think that this is necessary to have a whole nother committee and i yield back thank you ms bigger and no one on my left i look to the right and recognise mr bartlett was the next in line dr martin thank you very much i just like to note that the national science foundation generally does basic research i think what this bill addresses is a pplied research and there's a really fundamental difference there i like most people i think recoiled at the suggestion that big brother is going to socially engineer reengineer our society but on the other hand social and behavioral changes are precisely what we need we have almost no focus on conservation for instance because we have not had those social and behavioral changes that once i was riding in my prius and there were two of us in the prius and s u v was beside us with one person in it and i noted to myself that we were getting six times the mpg per person in the prius as compared to the person in engender huge changes in transportation it is of course five times more efficient to move something by rail than it is by truck and it's five times more efficient to move it by water than it is by rail and so the trucks in a energy fit deficient society should really be moving stuff only the last mile and so social behavioral changes could be enormously important in reducing our demand for foreign oil behavioral changes on setting that there is that i lived through the last i'd lived through the great depression i know many of you lived through the last big energy crunch in the seventy's and over every thermostat was a detail that said turn it up in the summertime and down in the winter time we don't have those anymore over every light switch and i still see some faded ones in old buildings that decal that said don't be foolish turn out the light when you leave the room so social and behavioral changes are precisely what we need as a matter of fact they cost us nothing but they could effect huge changes in the energy we use and the fish and sea in which we in which we use that energy so at the risk of alienating my ranking member who i am very fond he by the way is the only member of congress older and therefore wiser than i think i'm going to have to support this bill i really am conflicted on the bill because the one hand i sure as heck don't want big brother brainwashing me but on the other hand we desperately need these changes and we're going to develop a lot of really new technologies here and we're going to bend a lot of money doing it if nobody is going to accept them out there why in the heck are we doing it and so you know i some real real concern about how you do this but the fact that we need to change behavior and social and behavioral changes we absolutely must do that so i'm going to reluctant leap support this bill because i don't think that anybody else is doing what the national academy of science isn't doing its basic research that's wonderful but this applies the basic knowledge that they develop there thank you very much and i yield back thank you dr bartlett i'm looking to my saying no one then mr i can is recognized thank you mr chairman i just dead just a brief thought particularly is one of the very few engineers that ever made the mistake of coming to congress and the thing that i keep saying and i guess maybe engineers think this way so it becomes sort of obvious that is that all platitude that that we look for problems we're not exist and then pass a law to make the situation worse  there is some that is a little cynical i suppose but it is some truth to that but i keep noticing is that the first but we don't define what the problem is and you know if your psychology would help us to sort of zero in and let's really define what really is a problem trying to solve and then does the bill solve the problem and it seems to me an environmental legislation it's just amazing that way of i remember a few years ago as a state legislator we were being told by the federal government we had to put m t b e in our gasoline and made the gas burn cleaner well it's true it did it also polluted the groundwater which is a pretty dumb thing to have done so we didn't define what we're doing at all so now all of a sudden we realize hey we've just created a law that made the situation worse with our m t b e and we do the same thing you take a look at the cafe standards why is it always driving around on these these multi ton he would you vehicles well it's because we had cafe standards and automakers go ok you give us rules to play the game so that we'll call it a truck it doesn't have to meet the fleet mileage things and so everybody's now going drive around in trucks we think well that was very smart it was partly as a result of our that we just passed another bill we passed another bill just a couple of about a month or so ago and the idea was the a radically that because of global warming we need to reduce c o two that was a sort of general promise and i don't buy the premise this is early but if your real objective is to reduce c o two the bill we passed side from taxing at a huge level of bureaucracy get a reduced c o two at all and we could have easily reduce c o two if we really defined clearly what our objective was if it's to reduce c o two just move us from twenty to forty percent nuclear power generation it would have been the equivalent of taking every passenger car off the road so we don't really define what a problem is and maybe psychologist could help us with this problem not that i'm going to vote for this thing i think it's i don't really like it but if it could fix that problem boy then you'd have me as a convert for sure appreciate your indulgence mr chairman thank you mr i can before we start several minutes  the sponsor of this bill and frankly the person who is not convincing to vote against it is one of my own party mr bartlett who i respect immensely as well again it shows a bipartisan nature this committee when he mentioned all these things  and then that government could change that to create a bit of a problem for me you know what's the nature of the relation between government and the people and so now government is going to be in the role of dictating what car people cars people can drive and we're going more and more not direction and on a lighter note i understand that you know when mr beard talked about you know he has a thermostat that's hard to see at night so therefore sometimes he doesn't change it i don't need a federal program to tell me turn on the light change it there was a turn off the light or because we are free people by a thermostat that's got  the question is do we need the federal government to now start dictating every aspect in our lives and again you know the concept and i'm not because again today mentioned obviously it's well intentioned but  we do have to be very careful is no limit whatsoever to what the federal government's role should be to the point of maybe even going to the extreme of changing our behavior now because american people are not capable of turning on a light and turning it off are not capable of using a towel twice before washing it so it's it's the federal government's role to now tell us that again i with the deepest respect that i have for the for the sponsor of this legislation i think i think this is frankly just going a little bit overboard and i think it's kind of forgetting one of the most basic elements of humans which government forgets all the time it's common sense the american people have the right to determine if they turn on a light or not it's not government role i think to make every decision every single decision and try to change the way americans make every decision i think fundamentally it's just not the federal government's role tha different perspectives on these issues the basic issue is it's very simple and it may surprise you to find this out but the reason i got into politics was garbage solid waste very poorly in our county it was a mess had opened it running again to rivers and so friends persuaded me that i should run for office and try and clean up the mess so i did and i cleaned up the mess but much of what i learned from that is what we're talking about here now an answer to most of the problem was recycling how do you get people to recycle it is not easy every cycle for many many years in our for our entire family has and i calculated recently we had recycled about twenty two tons of paper out of our little three bedroom house not why didn't our neighbors do that  helps environment some do some don't but it's all in the matter of how you set up the program and how you set the goals i learned that in teaching to the trick of good teaching is not what you're saying but how  saying it how you convey it and i think that's what we're talking about here now the department of energy has not done a good job of this i think one of and i've repeatedly told every secretary of energy that we've had they should be ashamed because the most effective energy saving program ever developed by the federal government was developed by the e p a not by the department of energy they're the ones who should have done it but the a p a went to all the businesses in the program a payback if they greenlight program and convince them they could save money with a typical payback time of anywhere from six months to two years if they would put in appropriate lighting and their shops the factories and so forth i and so the problem i think we have with this amendment is we're concerned about what it's going to do what people are going to be saying what role the government is playing and so forth i think we can work that out should take that seriously and keep an eye on whatever this program develops into but to automatically assume that government's going to try and enter people's houses to change their minds reprogram their v c r s et i think that's stretching it a by the way even though i'm a scientist i have never programmed my v c r for a very simple reason i have never found any i've never watched anything on television that i thought was worth recording l really respectful discussion debate with everyone i mean it's really pleased with this and i think should continue as long as we want to go i want to put people on notice that we're going to have votes in less than an thank you also to mr baird and mr chairman for your interest and support of this amendment and my support of the underlying bill as well this amendment would create a new section of the bill under the duties of the director an ad language that would ensure that the research program in the application of research results actually address the diversity of geographic climactic cultural and socioeconomic factors that influence consumer choices in different communities within the united states and its territories i think as we can tell from the discussion of the underlying bill that clearly there are a lot of different influences that that factor when a consumer makes a choice about whether to use  technology more efficiently or not i wonder for example why is it that when i heard that there were more efficient light bulbs i went in my house and switched out all the light bulbs with my neighbor did not i wonder why i make the choice of  changing out a thermostat for seventy bucks that can allow me to program and save i calculated i saved about thousand dollars a year just changing a seventy dollars thermostat but my neighbors still have the same thermostat that was installed in their homes i think it's actually important for us to get at these underlying questions of why people make choices consumer choices of technology that can deeply impact the way in which we consume and save energy and i think that it's important for us to look across a number of different factors that influence that behavior whether it is where you live in the in the country in your geography or whether it's your culture or other kinds of factors that influence those choices and so i think in order for the bill to accomplish these goals that we have to have a full understanding of the factors to make sure that the information  obtained is reflective in that that information actually enables us to design and develop technology that people will actually use and embrace the amendment also at the new section under the contents of the research plan  identify mechanisms to ensure that research the research program and the application of its results address the various factors that we discussed i think this is a good amendment it really strengthened the underlying bill and i appreciate  the things that we're talking about how to make sure we control the behavior of our neighbors so for their benefit we want to we have to make sure that we can make decisions for them that are good for them i don't think is frankly consistent with the way i think that free people should act with one another or your neighbors do have their own life but if we do believe that there  are dynamics in our society which which need to be addressed and we just certainly need to change that takes place for the better that change takes place almost all the change that we've heard today being described take place because not because people's behavior is controlled or their thought patterns are affected by some government propaganda campaign but instead by something our founding fathers and have been part of our society since the beginning of our country  called price you know when you talk about recycling recycling is very good idea and it is now sweeping across our country in a major way because the price has come to the point where it makes a lot of sense and it also makes a profit to recycle the shape of automobiles and how big they are no i don't believe that a book had anything to do with developing smaller automobiles i think the fact that the price had a lot to do with it as well the price of gasoline has a lot to do with people's choices the price of electricity the fact is the american people have reduced their consumption of energy by three and point three percent per capita in our country between two thousand and two thousand five this wasn't because the government   i think that i give lady bird johnson a tremendous credit for at least helping alter the consciousness of the american people when it comes to the trashing of our parks i also give credit to the fact that we started giving people pines and charging them if they were caught trashing the parks and i would suggest to the young lady i know you are very well meaning about your neighbors and i just don't think it is up to us to go to our neighbors and say we're going to pass a law we're going to get government agencies out here to force you to do what's right for you and i think that's what comes down to the very philosophical  subcommittee markup of the bill what my amendment would do with the definition of eligible in either an institution of higher education as defined under the higher education act of one nine hundred sixty five a minority serving institutions a department of energy national laboratory and include the national laboratory in here any other research organization with experience and expertise in social and behavioral science and research  it's important to make sure that it's really clear that all of the various educational research institutions including those that serve predominantly might minority populations are also included as eligible for these grants to offer often by the department of energy and other agencies these institutions are overlooked in their research capacity and i think that  this amendment would encourage the department to do a much better job of engaging these institutions bringing them to the table for the full participation participation of the institutions at the central to accomplishing the goals of the bill including identifying and understanding social behavior factors that influence energy consumption again i appreciate chairman gordon your leadership and that of chairman barrett and appreciate the assistance from staff in drafting this amendment  social and behavioral science research that seems to me opening a very very wide door i would certainly appreciate more specificity on that one or perhaps removing th i don't i don't want to bother trying m m two amended or anything of that sort but i wonder if some are i mean here in the floor we can work out some language that would reduce the nature of that to be a suspension whatever vehicle for us to accomplish anything that you mutually agree upon will be done ok thank you for the discussion  are standalone entities affiliated with universities and i wanted to make sure that those entities are indeed included as eligible to these where the research dollars actually flowed institution and not necessarily through  with the national science foundation in preparing solicitations in awarding grants for projects under the bill the national science foundation has a strong history of soliciting awarding research social and economic sciences particularly related to energy and climate concerns and i think the program will be enhanced by allowing the department of energy to rely on the expertise of the n s f in the areas that the n s f has research so it's common sense so there's no duplications research and that there is coordination that's all the mamma does is a father discussion on the moment dr baird recognizes the chairman i agree with the intent of this amendment i thank the gentleman for offering it that's precisely my intent that this authorized under this act after twenty four months and to terminate such activities if determined by the secretary to be unnecessary after thirty six months the member requires a secretary of dio he to work with n s f in making a determination two years after two years as to the value of his agency of research in the social behavioral and economic factors that influence energy decision making if the secretary terms of such research is no longer necessary or that resources p better utilized in other ways he can terminate the research and the grant programs given the fact that n s f already does a great deal of research in this area and that deal we generally focuses its efforts on the sciences deal with physics engineering biology chemistry etc the secretary should give the discretion to determine whether it is most useful to his agency and determine whether the need to continue funding the social behavioral and economic research  timeframe on this is just not realistic the idea that you're going to turn you know an act this and then two years later you're going to have one crop of research possibly not even completed yet you need at the minimum you would need a substantially longer time period i would just also apparent that  observe it find it interesting that so many of my friends on the other side are so eager to of bandon article one responsibilities for the wisdom of the executive branch i think part of the constitution says that we're supposed to make some decisions around here and if we in our judgment say that this is a program worthwhile we should let it carry out for a while rather than relinquishing that now a review at some point makes sense but a two year review is entirely too brief and i would not completely relinquish  this to the to the executive branch to make the determination they could report back to this body if they like i think that's our oversight responsibility actually to investigate it so i'm going to urge it no on this gentleman wants to work on making sure our oversight committee struggling with here is a congress is the the incredible growth of government where all we're saying here it's not to terminate with six months of just thirty six months it just gets reviewed twenty four if the secretary determines that then we got to shut it down to thirty six  and i don't think that's too much to ask and forge that we hear in congress once we pass a program we don't terminated and it's important that we have some sort of review and my home state of texas we have sunset legislation which every piece of legislation every part of the state government has to get reviewed at least once every ten years and it's been incredibly successful in keeping the cost of our government down our taxes low and keeping our economy moving along fairly well in this difficult time it two years sometimes is a really a proper thing when something is as bad as this as it could be how much money you save much a year manes to the economy of the of the country but they might you know this is a review  two years and that's a pretty good long time for for an operation in and a terminated three years but maybe they get together on that i suggested they try but i don't see anybody be against reviewing a program to ensure that it's a competition goal and and terminating a program if it's not perform and as expected it should take three years thirty six months or forty eight months to figure out that they're doing something good for the country  is not worthwhile i think it's a good amendment to the discussion to see if they can't get together only three years maybe you're some term but haven't looked at least looked at where we could set it aside if it's not years research programs don't just happen overnight it takes a while but often the grants it takes a while to gather the data to write the report the time frame is just not realistic and somebody's done a fair bit of research it's not realistic the other thing i would be tempted almost to set this memo because quite frankly our mind control program should be sufficiently effective in that time that we will have persuaded everyone of the efficacy of the program but just in case we are not fully effective i'm going to stick with a six year authorization  mr davis mr davis votes no mr chandler mr chandler votes no mr carnahan mr carnahan no mr h barker votes mr bartlett rothman's not record it mr othman votes no anyone else that has not been accorded mr davis mr davis votes no mr chandler mr chandler votes no mr carnahan mr carnahan votes no mr hill mr mitchell mr mitchell votes no mr jemma for five minutes to explain his memo thank you mr chairman allow me to offer this commonsense amendment to h r thirty to forty seven mom in it is very straightforward simply put it would strike the phrase social and behavioral and replace it with market forces throughout the bill the national science foundation currently conducting research into the social and behavioral reasons behind energy consumption let me say that again the national believe this is a useful participatory experience knowledge is beside the point the point is very simply that this bill would create that duplicate program at the department of energy which is ill equipped to conduct this type of research this amendment would alter the intent of the bill by requiring the department of energy to focus instead on the economic factors that influence energy consumption not social or behavioral reasons and those economic factors i think  compass social and behavioral reasons too but the current economic crisis example of this connection people who have lost their jobs do not commute to work and families on tight budgets put off long trips until better times energy information administration reports that consumption of motor vehicle fuel dropped by about three point five percent in two thousand and eight from two thousand and seven and it predicts that consumption will fall again this year these reductions are connected with the high price of motor vehicle fuel in two thousand and eight an economic downturns that you'll smaller disposable incomes in two thousand and nine i have no doubt that the changing economic situations that everyday americans find themselves have a direct correlation to the amount of energy that they consume i'm not quite certain if it is of vital national interest that we research these consumption patterns but i am certain that it would be more worthwhile research is studying how and even if it does in fact matter as i stated before this type of research is already being done at the national science science foundation the n s f which is the primary source for social behavioral and economic or s research is currently receiving three hundred twenty five million dollars for e research and that includes eighty five million dollars in stimulus funding and they're already using some of this funding to conduct research related to energy consumption in fact there are nearly forty current n s f energy focused s b e grants in existence today with absolutely nothing prohibiting the national science foundation from funding more of these grants if they deem them worthy and necessary in short my minute will refocus the emphasis of this bill towards real economic market based decision research without its adoption this legislation serves only to create a redundant new program mr chairman i thank you for allowing me the time to bring forth what i feel is a commonsense amendment designed to focus this legislation on to the economic foundations of our energy consumption decision processes i feel it is a good and a much needed amendment and i asked my colleagues to support it with that mr chairman i reserved thank you are further discussion on the amendment mr baird mr chairman the field of behavioral economics has received increasing attention in recent years and the reason it has is because classical theories of economics and rational behavior are inadequate  and shown that fundamental principles of rational economic behavior violated on a regular basis human beings are not perfectly rational but we have predictable irrationalities i think we see that demonstrated repeatedly actually  and the point here is that economics is surely one aspect of the social and behavioral sciences that needs to be studied but there are other there's that play into that and that's what this bill would be about the amendment i think would deprive us of vital knowledge to help be more effective in reducing our energy consumption and hence i would urge its defeat and allow the full scope of the social and behavioral sciences to be applied to this critical reasons behind energy consumption to have another program that is doing exactly the same thing that the national science foundation is doing is duplicative it's a waste of taxpayers money  of the gentleman was here in fact two things one n s f is not extensively funding this given the potential return on investment into as dr bartlett and others have pointed out the premise here is to try to integrate and coordinate the deal with the research with the social and behavioral science research we've had testimony before that that is not happening and that is why this is needed it is by no means a duplicative program it is a program that is lacking to a large degree a department of energy it needs to be coordinated with all the other energy technologies we've been talking about for abundant reasons which we've discussed at some length here and in prior committees so i don't think the gentleman's assertion is factually correct nor do i think his amendment would be constructive i think would actually be destructive and with if they decided to do this study under current law current granting process is a reason that n s f could not do the research that this proposal  is geared towards that's not the right question the real question is is n s f the best place to do this research n s f it deals with fundamental basic research and it is doing some though not nearly enough in this realm the key point here is department of energy as the primary federal agency tasked with dealing with the energy demands of this country we have abundant research that shows that we have great effect in behavioral and social interventions to reduce energy consumption the single most of fashion energy production we have today is conservation and we can do it more efficiently with elian they ought to be lucky and that's why we're reclaiming the balance much i've proposed the department of energy doesn't have the expertise the doc baird has and others have to do this kind of research where is n s f does have the expertise has the knowledge to be able to do this type of research just admit that unicef is the best place they have the personnel they have the wherewithal to do that so my question is very germane that in s f can do this if they deem necessary and and certainly i think that they should be what m does is just look at the market forces which this is not doing and that's part of social and behavioral issues too so this if we change the focus from black to reclaim my time as support this passage is i agree with dr brown that economic factors economic factors that say that three or four times but they have a lot more effect on consumer cho if i have mr chairman five children under the age of fifteen and i don't think market forces explain why they always leave the lights on when they leave the room or why the t v is always on regardless of whether even home or not i tend to think if we're going to find any solution to that problem it's going to be through socio social and behavioral research rather than research on market forces my time recall has five daughters so you can have a joint research projects there if the i my guess is you're correct in what you just said my also i would put forward the proposition that we do not treat the american people like children that once someone reaches a certain age we have respect for them for making decisions in their own lives if your neighbor is indeed not using those light bulbs that will be cost effective perhaps we can be do the neighborly thing and suggest by the way could save some money here let me give you a suggestion but hire a nice psychiatry to tell us how to control the behavior of our neighbor well that's a totally different proposition i support  congressman brown's proposal because what we have here is the basic difference between what we would call a statist approach versus a pro choice and pro freedom approach to america's problems for example i was just for example if there was someone on your side of the aisle who drives an s u v and has made the same choice that i've made because they would they want  to protect their family and they're willing to pay more for gas and they're willing to pay more for that as well i think it would be fine for us to say well maybe you should think about a car that's lighter and we really believe that these are such a waste because they're so heavy and they waste gas except in order to provide that protection well then perhaps our job is to finance the research into composite materials that will make it possible to have that same amount of protection for the consumer at a lower price and using less gasoline that's our to force on our people these wonderful ideals that we have they may not be right we may be trying to hire psychiatry to say why don't people why don't people want to put stuff in their the people themselves even though they may be making wrong decisions we have a right to suggest otherwise we have a right to offer alternatives by coming up with the technological and scientific information and knowledge that will permit alternatives but with with great levity about people not making rational decisions and we've seen certainly with a number of politicians in both parties where people have made irrational decisions for various reasons but when we study in energy consumption the market forces i think is the greatest factor in why people decide to buy an issue about hybrid car anything else whether to use green light bulbs or fluorescent light bulbs anything else and i think going to market for studies would be a whole lot more useful for us to be able to understand how people make those rational decisions be able to understand that perhaps they need to make a compromise and permit some some of those windmills off there rather than sending the study why people in nantucket don't want to have their view disturbed by hear a live to see the day when my republican colleagues were literally asking for tax increases on utilities and gasoline and so we would certainly entertain that market force which is the most powerful market force in  america and so any resolution or bill that you might introduce on increasing the taxes on gasoline or your constituents utility bills we would certainly love to see that if in reality that's that's where you're going with  earlier there was this notion of nantucket i mr smith suggested well i'm going to try to suggest these people are going to control their minds some i was joking when i said precisely i had no idea that this was going to turn in that direction i just for the final point i just want to be clear we're not only going to unleash psychiatry sanju it's going to be anthropologists and economists and psychologists psychiatrists will drug you the v that's not what i'm suggesting not for that reason and a d i must say that your preoccupation with people controlling your thoughts suggests that you might want to consult one but regardless of that i want to point out that if the if the fundamental choice here is between doing social logical research and as you put it market forces research the record is clear people even republicans sometimes make a rational choices if you want to actually delve into the research that has been done the research shows quite clearly that for instance the lation of water heaters and in one's home has a very high rate of return economically and it's something that almost no one does the installation of motion detectors in one's home is something that has a very high rate of return in terms of energy savings and cost savings and it's something that almost no one does so i joined dr barrett in pointing out the truth of the matter which is whether we are children or adults sometimes we make irrational decisions democrat or republican and a better understanding of that's research cannot help but to promote energy conservation and economy in this country there's no further discussion than the missed a taco mr griffith mr griffin griffith both mr osterman mr matheson mr davis mr davis both signed mr mr lamar smith mr ward bachar mr ward barker votes no mr bartlett mr eyler mr lucas report make necessary technical changes and that the chairman make all necessary steps to bring the bill before the house for consideration the question is on the motion to report the bill favorably those in favor of the motion will signify by saying i i know that having the bill does favor reported that objection the motion is considered is laid upon the table let me just quickly say everybody leaves i want to very much thank you i think the committee rose to a new level today this obviously was a bill where bright able people could have differing opinions and it was conducted in a civil way i thank you for that members we have two consecutive calendar days in which you submit supplemental minority additional views on the matter matter w