will now come to order and i want to welcome everyone to today's hearing to review a draft committee bill on the amendment to man and strengthen the national nanotechnology is an issue i think this is one of the most important hearings that we're going to have this year i know that we have a busy day for members and other committees but we have a lot of staff watching this on t v and so will be a lot of a lot of information that w communicated from the hearing and i appreciate you giving you being here the term revolutionary technology has become a cliche but nanotechnology truly is revolutionary we stand at the threshold of an age in which materials and devices can be fashioned atom by atom to satisfy specific design and requirements nanotechnology based applications are rising that were not even imagined a decade ago nanotechnology is not a single technology but is rather is a collection of tools and concepts for observing controlling and manipulative matter at the atomic scale the range of potential applications is broad and will have enormous consequences for the electronics ation and storage materials and medicine and health today in just a few days the scope of this technology is so broad as to lay virtually no product untouched the science and technology committee recognized a promise of nanotechnology early on holding our first hearing a decade ago to review federal activities in the field the committee was substance was subsequently instrumental in the development and an act of a statute in two thousand and three that authorized the interagency national nanotechnology initiative or the in two thousand and three statute put in place formal interagency planning budgeting and coordinating minack in ism's for the  now receives funding from thirteen agencies and has a budget of one and a half billion dollars for fiscal year two thousand and eight which represents a doubling of the budget over the last five years the n i asked at you to also provides for formal the cooperation and planning process is among the participating agencies in the in and have been also largely effective the n r a has led to a productive cooperative research efforts across the spectrum of disciplines it has established a network of national facilities for support of nanoscale research and development therefore the in an eye does not require extensive renovation the draft bill leaves its major features unchanged but does it just some important priorities and strengthen some specific aspects of the program i would like to highlight two key features of the bill the first area is risk reduction nanotechnology is advancing rapidly at least six hundred products have entered commercial car commerce that contain nano scale materials including aerosols and cosmetics it's important for the successful development of nanotechnology that potential downsides of technology be addressed from the beginning in a straightforward and open way we know too well that the negative public perceptions about the safety of technology can have serious consequences force except once in use this is been the case with nuclear power genetically modified foods and stem cell therapies the science base is not now available to pin down what types of engineered now materials may be dangerous although early studies show some are potentially harmful we don't yet know what characteristics of these materials are most significant to determine their effect on living things or the environment nor do we even have the instruments for effective monitoring the presence of such materials in the air or water although the in an ad from its beginning realize the need to include activities for in creasing really understanding the environmental and safety aspects of now technology has been slow to put in place a well designed adequately funded and effectively executed research program the environmental and safety component in a must be improved by quickly developing and implementing a strategy research pla that specifically this specifies near term and long term goals sets milestones and time frame for meeting near term goals clarifies anuses roles in implementing the plan and allocate sufficient resources to accomplish the goals this is the essential first step for the development of nanotechnology to ensure that sound science gad's the former formulation of regulatory rules and requirements it will reduce the current uncertainty that inhibits commercial development nanotechnology and will provide a sound basis for future rulemaking i'm interested in hearing the use of our witnesses own the provisions of the bill relevant to the development and implementation of an effective environmental health and safety research component of the in an app and particularly on whether it would be beneficial to specifically says that a portion of the overall in an ad budget for this purpose as is proposed in this bill the second area of legislation i want to highlight involves capturing the economic benefits of nanotechnology too often the us has led in the basic research on the front tiers of science and technology but it's failed to capitalize on the commercial development flowing from new discoveries the in a has so far invested approximately seven billion dollars over seven years in basic research that is providing new tools for manipulation of matter at the nanoscale and is increasingly increasing our understanding of the behavior of engineered nano scale materials and devices increased consideration under should now be given to support of efforts to foster the transfer of new discoveries to commercial products and processes braff bill includes provisions to encourage use of nanotechnology facilities by companies for prototyping and proof of concept studies and is specific and specify steps for increasing the number of nanotechnology rated projects supported under the small business innovation research program and by the technology innovation program established under the competes act to increase the relevance and  in the draft bill also authorizes large scale focus multi agency research and development initiatives in areas of national need for example such efforts could be organized around developing a replacement for the silicon base trans transistor developing new technology based devices for harvesting solar energy nanoscale sensors for detecting cancer draft in an imam must act was developed on the basis of recommendations from the former abuse of the inapt by the national academies of science and by the president's council of advisors on the science and technology which currently acts as the external advisory committee in an ad it also incorporates recommendations from witnesses testimony from in our hearings during this in the previous congress and and from comments and recommendations resulting from staff discussions with various stakeholder groups but legislation is still a work in progress today i look forward to the observations of our witnesses and invite them to give the committee their recommendation for ways to improve the bill and i want to thank our witnesses for their attention at this hearing and look forward to our discussion the chair now recognizes mr ayers for an opening statement thank you mr chairman but first i must mention that ranking member ralph hall is indisposed today which means he's sick and it and proceed with with my own statement i am pleased the committee is holding this important hearing today the purpose of this hearing is to discuss draft reauthorization legislation designed to improve the management  coordination of the cross agency national nanotechnology initiative better known as and i particular interest to this committee is a prioritization of environmental health and safety research and communication of that research to the public to n c original act was put in place in two thousand and three we have heard from a number of witnesses as a chess research may need to be increased to ensure a steady pathway for both the nano and history success and public sector acceptance of new technologies consequently i am pleased that the draft legislation elevates the environmental health sense and safety complement of the and i at the same time i want to make sure that we craft policy which allows for h s research to be embedded into product development we know that each nano product and process may be  differently and therefore independent research may not always inform a seemingly parallel project i am also interested in hearing from our witnesses about some of the proposed changes to nanotechnology education particularly at the changes to existing education programs at the national science foundation given the challenging funding environment for these programs i want to make sure such changes would benefit students and classroom teachers and not eat or weigh at other important programs i look forward to hearing the insights of our witnesses and how we can strengthen the national next and permit the national nanotechnology initiative i would ask unanimous consent that mr hahn to be allowed to join this hearing if he so chooses and you can you can you're welcome take a seat here i would also remind mr hyundai's he remembers from being a member of the committee that the current members will have precedence in terms of asking questions but we certainly want his expert and we're glad that he's here to join us no objection mr hunter will join us this time i would like to introduce our witnesses first mr offload quite quiet me is the co chair of the president's council of advisors inside technology mr sean murdoch operation and is also representing the american chemistry council and found we dr robert doring dr drawing is a senior fellow and research strategy manager at texas instruments is also representing the  semiconductor industry association thank you for joining us today and we have a very distinguished panel at this point we will open our first round of questions and the chair scuse me i guess we should hear from a witness i will carry on ok my name is floyd quami i'm co chair of the president's council of viruses and science and technology a high level group from academia industry and other entities experience in leading successful science and technology enterprises my remarks today are my own but i'm confident that my fellow v cast members feel similarly on the issues under discussion last week p cas release that second review of the national nanotech knowledge initiative or n n i and i'd like to reference that report in full for this hearing record as it includes a detailed assessment of the n and i program activities and coordination developed through extensive review over the last eighteen months we're here today to talk about the end and i in the committee's draft legislation to reauthorize this important program what  nanotechnology if one drops the nano part of the word we're talking about technology technology today invades every part of our economy not only computers and communications but health care energy transportation education and in a word everything as a result a technology initiative is about a wide and varied range of industries and applications now technology is simply the continuing development of technology to applications which take advantage of the unique properties of some materials it's being applied in all of the applications mentioned above and will undoubtedly make many of the products in these applications better either in performance cost or both establishment of the end and i was a very good idea i commend the congress in this committee for authorizing this initiative in two thousand and three in both our first report in two thousand and five and our and now our second one we have had to deal not only with the diversity that is nanotechnology but also a wide range of federal agencies involved in supporting and or conducting nano r and d the initiative did not set up a new an agency with a specific budget rather it set coordination planning and review mechanisms intended to ensure individual agency activities nanotechnology are effectively supporting program and government wide goals the legislation formally established the coordinating office which raises its budget through contributions from the various agencies with nanotechnology r and d budgets agencies with primarily regulatory missions have also tak an active role in the initiative and it contributed to its activities this strong interagency coordination and premier example of any such federal r and d initiative has been central to the success to date of the end and i appropriate and informed support research needs map those needs to current activities to identify potential research opportunities and then prioritize those opportunities to inform budget and planning activities the provision of the draft reauthorizing legislation that the and  collectively allocate a minimum of ten percent of its nanotechnology r and d to h h s related research is however problematic in both practice and principle in practice the funding of e j agency is independent of the n n i the end said subcommittee provides the base for coordinating member agency activities and planning efforts but it does not direct and i funding further is not reasonable to exclusively designate projects or portions of projects as exclusively e h s or not the reporting structure of the n i by p c a is enables characterization analysis of the research portfolio that is sufficient for policy and planning purposes the current funding mechanisms and structure makes it difficult for me to see how this minimum funding across the program is practical in principle to set aside appears to be arbitrary and not based on a sound scientific analysis of the and i portfolio of relevant research including extensive relevant research not reported in the chess program component area and what is strategically needed instead support should be guided by the identified gaps and sequential priorities identified in the h s research strategy like all other aspects of the n n i e h s research funding decisions should be determined by identified r and d objectives as is currently the prochoice the agencies within the n i scientifically determined strategically plan priorities not arbitrary percentages should guide funding for all nanotechnology research with respect to the oversight provisions of the  experience of the peak as in its role as the nano national now technology advisory panel combined with a detail expertise of the ad hoc technology viber visor group has worked quite well the last five years in providing functional oversight for the n n i and directly advising the president on down technology the proposed bill should maximize the flexibility for the next administration in establishing its own advisory structure as the current precast prepares to pass the baton to the next administration we will suggest they incorporate a similar approach to oversight leveraging leveraging the expertise of a large technical advisory group whether they be within p cast or separate in summary the internet is currently structured  productive and effective program and a model of inner agency coordination our newly released report makes recommendations for improvement but finds a program basically sound industry is benefiting from its research a clear strategy has been developed for nanotechnology s research and h s guidelines are being presented to guide industry international cooperation is happening the coordinating office and i participate painting agencies have responded to past recommendations from the cast as well as the national micromanagement such as costly database requirements will further strengthen and promote interagency coordination that has been vital to the success of the and i to date this approach would confirm the goals as present of the original legislation and commend the agencies for their coordinated efforts to maintain the leadership and competitiveness of the u s in that of technology thank you thank you and mr murdoch your recognized thank you chairman garden chairman gordon ranking member hall and the members of the house committee on science and technology i would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify on the national nanotechnology initiative amendments act of two thousand and eight my name is sean murdock and i'm the executive director of the nano business alliance the nano business  nanotechnology policy and commercialization advocacy group in the united states member span multiple stakeholder groups and traditional industry sectors including newly formed startups fortune five hundred companies academic research institutions and public private partnerships working to drive economic development and growth through an asset knology this wide group of stakeholders has come together because we believe that nanotechnology will be one of the key drivers of quality of life improvements economic growth and business success in the twenty first century the most important frontiers of science and technology and that now technology is the potential to dramatically improve our quality of life our health our environment and our economy the national now technology initiative which this committee led congress in authorizing in two thousand and three provided a framework for coordinated federal research and development that authorization bill the twenty first century now tech r and d act focused on fundamental now technology research now five years later it is time to reauthorize and update this legislation much has changed in the past half decade now technology is beginning to move from the laboratory to the store shelf american now technology companies are beginning to shift from prototype development to large scale manufacturing employers are beginning to look for now technology qualified workers and the public is beginning to take notice of now technology with its many benefits and some potential risks which need to be examined and managed that the landscape has changed so much in five years is in no small part due to the success of the national nanotechnology initiative itself but it's excessive jumpstarting the nation's now technology now needs to be up to did reflect five years a growth we are pleased that the committee is thought carefully about how best to bring the national that technology initiative up to date the draft legislation will prove the initiatives capabilities in several key areas including translational research and development for commercialization now technology education and environmental health and safety research as members of the committee know america faces intense global competition in every field but nowhere is this competition more intense in the field of now technology its economic development potential has led countries across europe and aged to make large and strategic investments in their technology research and development the stated goal many of these countries is to dominate one or more sectors and change their geopolitical position russia has announced a seven billion dollar now technology initiative that will spend nearly seven hundred fifty million more on that technology research each year than the united states china is perspiring parity basis approximately a billion dollars and growing rapidly the united states continues to lead the world in fundamental nasdaq knowledge research but over the last five years we've seen our foreign competitors demonstrate that they are becoming equally capable and from our slicing the technology we must reverse this trend while we cannot and should not adopt our competitors model drug state investment products companies we can and should take steps to ensure that an innovative american companies have unfettered access to american research that they're able to commercialize that research efficiently and effectively we should encourage programs such as that s p r and c t r program and that technology innovation program we should focus our efforts on goal oriented research in areas of national sport and we should do that everything we can to see that federal state and private resources are working together to bring these technologies to market the draft legislation does this it retools that national now technology initiative focus more on applied research while maintaining the commitment to fundamental research that supports large scale collaborative efforts to develop now technology solutions the key public policy challenges such as energy efficiency environmental cleanup and health care and updates the initiative to include databases and other information sharing mechanisms that actually helped and the public understand what resources and opportunities doing are available the nano business life is firmly committed to advancing that of technology education we cannot expect to compet are not generating nanotechnology literate students who will go on to become leaders in the workers and the nanotechnology economy the future we need to inspire american students to true science tracks and high school and then provide them with hands on nanotechnology opportunities in colleges and technical colleges as it stands we are educating foreign students than sending them home to compete against us according the n s f foreign students on temporary visas earned thirty two percent of all science and engineering doctorates or in the united states last year for which it is available foreign students earned fifty five percent of engineering doctorates many of these students will ultimately return home we must develop more domestic scientific talent if we are to lead in that technology commercialization over the long haul we believe that inspiration and inquiry driven learning are key to accomplishing that the alliance supports putting that technology school tools into the hands of students in community colleges and campuses so they can see firsthand what nanotechnology is and why it's important the alliance also supports integrating local man technology businesses into the program and many of our members are already reaching out to schools to do that  in terms of environmental health safety research and technology has tremendous potential benefits for the environment health and safety but as we develop now technology applications we must do so responsibly identifying and identifying and addressing any research hazard associate with that technology before it causes environment health or safety problems the alliance is called for the national nine technology initiative to include a comprehensive fully funded environmental safety research program and this legislation does that and then a business alliance believes that the environmental health safety research should be fully funded based on a clear carefully constructed research strategy while we believe that ten percent of the total funding for now technology research in development is reasonable is a reasonable estimate of the resources that will be required to execute the plan we also believe that the actual resource level should be driven a strategic plan as they will vary significantly across agencies the alliance appreciates the communities commitment to developing a broader understanding than technology before acting and extensive new regulatory structure we hope that congress will see the wisdom of the committee's approach and will use th s authorized by this is a basis for deciding what if anything is needed i'd like to thank the committee once again for the opportunity just lying to testify and its leadership on this issue thank you very much thank you and  for the last thirty four years first as a high school science teacher and now as professor of science education at the university of michigan i'm currently called in a national science foundation center for the for teaching and learning in an upscale science and engineering  of this i will speak primarily about the educational components of the act let me begin by saying that we live in a very exciting time with respect to advance in science and technology we also live in a very exciting time with respect to that education because we now more about how people learn than ever before the advances of nano scale science and in the global economy in which we live challenge the education committee to help all children develop deeper and more useful understanding of course science ideas that underlie nanoscience unfortunately despite what we know about about unfortunately this despite what we know about learning the current education system is failing to produce a populace scientifically literate enough to understand the advances of nano science and to prepare workforce for the new jobs and professions that are emerging from this field children our country continue to lag behind in science and mathematics and international assessments perhaps most unfortunately the most under served children are in locations where typically children do not succeed in science are nations large urban cities in rural areas as a nation as we become more diverse the challenge of how to provide quality science and instruction is amplified our children will grow up in a world where they will need to apply and communicate scientific ideas make sound decisions based upon this understanding and collaborate with other people to solve important problems and they all technology research and development act provides important support to improve the education of children in this country although important important first steps i question whether this act will provide sufficient resources to make a difference for all children if the answer is in nanoscience requires a commensurate response from the educational committee community community such as the financial resources needed to make this response possible must be provided by the national government government with the private sector sharing in this responsibility provide world class science education so that all children learn ideas about nanoscience our country needs to invest in several important initiatives first we need to invest in sustained professional development to support six to twelve great teachers and learning content in the interdisciplinary way of thinking that is pervasive  science many teachers studied science with nano science ideas in a fall and phenomena they explain has not emerged without providing teachers opportunity to learn new content interdisciplinary way of thinking they will not be able to instruct our children in these emerging science areas the stay in professional development is also needed to help teachers learn new pedagogical strategies and to take teaching techniques we have learned much in the last ten years about how to promote science learning but unfortunately many of these practices are not seen in schools in science classrooms second our country need to develop new standards and assessments that focus on the core ideas of science including those central tests nanoscience although the national science education standards move this country forward and promoting standard base reform their standards are not a stage for renovation is a they do not include ideas related to national science and still cover too many ideas that prevent learners from developing useful understanding we also need to provide incentives to wide to lie in all states in this country this new shared vision of science teacher don't learning third this country needs to develop new instructional resources including new learning technologies most instructional materials used in classrooms today do not include emerging science ideas and do not include the latest ideas about how children learn forth we need to ensure that six to twelve great science classrooms have a port appropriate equipment and facilities to allow all students to experience a all students experience and explore doing science when not feasible partnerships with private sectors and universities need to provide this equipment fifth we need to redesign undergraduate education including science teacher preparation programs so that new ideas and science and learning and the interdisciplinary manner of thinking that nanoscience incorporates are included is not it only through the out revamping undergraduate education including teacher preparation that will make lasting changes in science education we need teachers who understand emerging ideas and in science and the new ideas and teaching learning as such we need to provide incentives to attract the very best student science majors in the teaching careers finally we need to build partnerships with the private sector in sharing in the cost of this effort and summary to ensure all children this country has access to world class science education that will help them understand not nanoscience and prepare them for fruitful lives in the future economy we need to provide sustained professional development renovate science education standards develop and test new instructional materials provide for proper equipment and resources and redesign under redesign undergraduate education and build private build partnerships of the private sector thank you for the opportunity to express my professional view documented i have some good news bad news for you the good news is that ninety nine percent of your recommendations were incorporated into a bill that we passed the president signed last year called american competes act amazingly you were cited the bill basically the bad news is that the tree didn't fall if you don't hear it and that we have not been able to get the proper funding or any funding really for the bill yet however  marketplace that gets funded so hopefully at least the good news there is we have the authorization and we're working very hard to try to get the funding for your almost exact recommendations now dr david you wan it involves a wild wet materials just don't play by the rules as we know them but demonstrates many strange and wonderful behaviors metals change color materials become highly reactive what was once weak become strong long for instance if you take a material like this this is not a scale tamed outside it looks like a monday white powder but this material super fine structure which is invisible to the naked eye allows this particular material to be used to kill microbes make self cleaning windows and we need a top level research strategy that identifies the goals of nanotechnology risk research across the federal government and provides a roadmap for achieving these goals secondly i strongly believe a minimum of ten percent of the federal government's nanotechnology r and d budget should be dedicated to goal oriented environmental health and safety research any less than this will risk compromising the success of emerging nanotechnology is certainly a coordinator should be appointed with responsibility for overseeing and implementing a now in technology environmental health and safety rese public private partnerships and needed that leverage government and industry funds to address critical nana sic technology oversight issues in an independent transparent and timely manner and finally government actions to support the development of safe nanotechnolog must be transparent without transparency there is no clear foundation for enabling strategic planning or engendering trust within industry or the public i think it's fair to say that transparency has been an issue for safety re so far within the n n i recently the national sec ology initiative announced that sixty eight million dollars was spent on nanotech risk related research in fiscal year two thousand and six but as has happened many times now no clear supporting data were given for this figure sifting through the research claims to be relevant to now the technology safety i could only find thirteen million one three million dollars that was invested in research that is highly relevant to addressing the health and environmental impact nanotechnology for two thousand and six the same analysis and this is somewhat interesting the same analysis for research in europe over the same period reveals an investment of twenty four million dollars in nanotech safety research over the same period is quite simply not worth the paper it is written on now the technology will not succeed through wishful thinking instead it will depend on clear and or forest of leadership from the top the proposed national nanotechnology initiative amendment act of two thousand and eight addresses each of the areas i have just highlighted and in my personal opinion supports the leadership necessary for the successful development of safe nanotechnology is i personally commend the committee for pr takes an important step in signing to a single coordinator the responsibility for ensuring that an adequately funded and leverage top down strategic plan for nanotechnology h and s research is developed and implemented when i look back on the origins of the n i i'm impressed by the foresight and quality of leadership exam by congressional vision race on both sides of the aisle together with the president and the executive branch scientists and engineers business people and educators but perhaps because the tremendous success of chief in the voluntary since its creation we do risk losing sight of the challenges involved in taking the n and i to the next level of research education governance and commercialization i morning mr chairman and members of the committee my name is dr raymond david i'm a toxicologist with the s f corporation but i'm here on behalf of the american chemistry council nanotechnology panel to speak in favor of the and i amendments act of two thousand and eight the infrastructure that this amendment will provide will create greatly improve the the ability of the u s to plan coordinate and implement research programs especially ones that are focused on safe use of nanotechnology infrastructure and focus will be welcome in an area that's seen an explosion of research and experimental data in a scientific literature but not necessarily always focused on addressing any one particular issue under the n and i amendment a central federal research oversight function will be created to address specific research questions and provide the capability to utilize all the federal research resources available to answer any one particular questions much like other governments around the globe this central oversight will bring the strengths of organizations such as the e p a and i h and c t r and the national characterization laboratory together to resolve particular question and they can do that in a fashion that will be much chris faster than academia or industry alone could resolve the amendment's mandate that the end and i provide information to the academic and industrial research communities on current research programs so that we don't we can reduce the redundancy on some of the experiments we see available techniques and methodologies and facilities that can support robust scientific research this information will be welcome in an area that we've seen a lot of redundancy in terms of the scientific literature and hopefully gain acceptance of a minimal characterization of valuation parameters so that people will know exactly what the characteristics of the nanomaterials are that they are testing this is something that is presently lacking and would otherwise make their research on interpretable the a c c strongly supports the intention to educate all stakeholders especially the public on nanotechnology i think we're at a crossroads in terms of the public perception with respect to the uses of nanomaterials some of them and some of the information that the public receives from the media tends to overemphasize the uncertainties of nanotechnology we believe that it's important that the public understand the true risks and benefits of this technology and the nano materials that are being used and they need to receive that in a very clear straightforward manner of course these amendments and the infrastructure that they create does not guarantee success the proof is really in the putting the implementation is what's important the a c c would like to reemphasize that a comprehensive prioritize federal research strategy focusing on e h s concerns is still missing what we need to do is we need to focus on assessments of risks to health and the environment we need to promote new internet disciplinary relationships we need to support better understanding of the fundamental properties of nanomaterials and how that impacts the risk assessment we need to develop process sees for establishing standard protocols so that individuals and maybe categories of nanomaterials can be evaluated we need to clearly delineate the responsibilities programmes timelines and anticipated results of funded projects and i think we need to leverage planned research that's ongoing throughout the world particularly in the o e c d we have previously urged and independent review by the national research councils board on environmental studies and talks apology to establish research priorities for manufactured nanomaterials the panel continues to believe that that is an important effort that should be pursued so that we can develop a comprehensive road map with appropriate projects and priorities and evaluation metrics the nanotechnology panel member companies want to foster a responsible application of nanotechnology we want to share and coordinate e h s research initiative and we want to facilitate the exchange of information we look forward to working with the congress and then an eye to make the implementation of these amendments a success we hope the bill will be passed and we look forward to that happening thank chairman gordon members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the national nanotechnology initiative amendments act of two thousand and eight texas instruments and the semiconductor industry association you two topics is key to the legislation first i didn't cation of areas of national importance and second translation of basic research into commercialization these are essential to ensuring that the in and i program maintains u s leadership in nanotechnology and around nanotechnology research to address critical challenges facing our country the ins i are encouraged that electronics is the first area listed and strongly advocate that it be renamed as nano  and electronics will actually play a key role in essentially every area of national importance it will enable improved information processing communications imaging and sensor technologies that will assist in addressing energy challenges improving health care and detecting national security threats advanced an electronics research is needed because the cmos technology that the semiconductor industry has used for over thirty years is projected to reach its performance energy efficiency and cost limits by the year two thousand and twenty and two thousand and five six u s semiconductor companies formed a consortium the nano electronics research initiative to provide industry funds to universities to accelerate this research is funding and expertise from industry in s f and nist as well as contributions from state and local governments and works research at thirty five universities and four regional centers this collaboration model can be replicated to address other national challenges with nanotechnology research the draft legislation recognizes and encourages such models effectively pursue research in the areas of national importance universities and federal labs will need adequate resources for research funding and essentially quick in the ny investments in the areas of national importance should be reported in the same manner that they currently are for the program component ar bill recognizes that basic nanotechnology research would lead to commercial applications industry can play an important role in establishing a balance between directed basic research and its potential commercialization by providing insights on appropriate goals and needs for both for example there are a number of candidates for new nano electronics devices but to be viable these must be capable of being manufactured in commercial volumes at low cost this may require an entirely new nano manufacturing paradigm also as we move nano electronics to even smaller dimensions the metrology challenges will only increase an important role for nist thus the bills call for instrumentation and tools for nano scale manufacturing is a significant element for the semiconductor industry in addition the draft legislation rightly identifies the important role of state leverage through research development and technology transfer initiatives the state of texas the university of texas system and texas industry collaborated to establish a thirty million dollar complimentary package of leveraged funding to attract and support top academic researchers at the southwest academy of nano electronics which is one of the regional centers in i raq currently in our eye state and local leverage for all regional centers totals about fifteen million dollars annually in conclusion while the legislation establishes an important framework corresponding appropriations will need to follow we look forward to continuing our work with this committee to successfully achieve the funding goals of america competes and the president's american competitiveness initiative as the national nanotechnology initiative amendments act of two thousand and eight moves toward final passage thank you thank you dr owen you're absolutely right we've got to do more than authorize we've also got to follow up with those were gracious thank you at this point we will open ourselves for the first round of questions and the chairman recognize him self there's been a lot of discussion this morning about health and safety environmental concerns about nano technology let me tell you two reasons that i'm particular concerned about that one is my seven year old daughter and i suspect i don't suspect i know all of us have reasons of some nature of that saying that same interest and the other is i want to make sure that america gets the you know as much of a bang for buck out of our investment as we can i want to be first to market i want to be able to create jobs in this country built around mental technology and as a son of a farmer i asked him hone it to some extent about what i've seen with genetically altered grain i've seen how it has been rejected even though in my opinion i think we've had good research to the contrary around around the world i don't want that to happen here and i think that means we've got to get out in front there's already  six hundred products on the market and it concerns me that we're going to have a you know a horror story with you know one out of six hundred and it could put a taint own the entire industry and for that reason the draft bill requires that ten percent in and asked total funding be designated for the environmental health and safety research component area there at an end this would be about one hundred fifty million dollars under the current may have the unintended consequence or producing research on beneficial applications and on risk so let me ask you do you feel like your panel is satisfied with the current level of funding own health environment safety well as i mentioned my testimony we and in our report we call for increased spending in that area and particularly since the industry is picking up more and more research funding in the narrow area we think the more spending in the chest area is is is requested and is happening is roughly double the two thousand and six numbers from thirty seven to seventy six million dollars in two thousand and nine  i think that will happen with your panel discuss an appropriate level we took we talked about what is happening and what is the strategy behind what is happening we've reviewed the knee high report we have not yet because it just came out in february we looked more at what what activities are in that and we believe that the activities call for that report and in the subsequent e p a research strategy are appropriate things to fund and we believe that these funding levels can support that level of research to be fair to say that you're not satisfied with the current level think there should be additional spending but do not want to put a specific ten percent flow i think that's a fair statement namely we have encouraged the increased spending in this area now the tickler that we do call out that we haven't mentioned yet is in ny we believe that the workplace is the most critical area and we do call for an acceleration of the funding in the  and as i said earlier we don't know the exact appropriate level for this funding we think that ten percent is ultimately reasonable estimate but that that should be disarmed by the strategic planning process i think ray david  dr david mentioned the national academies best study which we've also supported to figure out what that that number has i think it's also important that we continue to make the investments in some of the characterization of metrology equipment the measurement techniques you know in particular for the workplace exposure is one of those agencies that is doing tremendous work with virtually no dollars to do it and that is a critical area where more investment is needed if we're going to make real progress towards developing safe nanotechnology is if you look at funding in general one thing i think is indisputable we need more money to do talk to a genetic research if we don't have more money we will not get the answers that people need in order to make good decisions and that means you've got to set some sort of guidelines and you can do it one of two ways you can either set a baseline level say a hundred million dollars hundred fifty million dollars a year which are the figures that are being recommended or you can set it as a percentage of the overall funding for nanotechnology research i actually think it makes it simpler to set that ten percent level and it's reasonable level any less than that it's really hard to see how we're going to get the information we need in order to ensure the safety and success of these technologies but that funding has got to be allayed with a strategy you cannot just look at the dollars you've got to understand where those dollars are going what you're going to achieve with them and if you don't have that strategy if you don't have that accountability you could put hundred two hundred million dollars per year in this area and achieve absolutely nothing dr david i think andrew's made some very good points and i agree with them i think that it's very difficult to come up with an exact figure and certainly a percentage probably is the most appropriate way to approach it or whether ten percent is the correct number or some other percentage i think that that's a difficult question to answer without having some external recommendation i can tell you that within industry companies can spend anywhere from from two to five percent of their budget on r and d efforts pharmaceutical companies fifteen percent and that that simply is a reflection of the kinds of products that they are general rating what is required to determine that those products are safe for consumer uses and so ten percent lie somewhere in between that number and is probably as a reasonable starting point as any but i think that it is probably  excellent idea to have the national academies come back with an actual recommendation that seems to make the most sense to me just for your information about paul and build the set forth a strategic pla attacked which co find a center on environmentally benign manufacturing for semiconductors at the university of arizona and it has partner universities around the country that are part of that center as well  addition the international technology roadmap for semiconductors which is a very detailed document approximately a thousand pages of the research needs that we have for our industry that pre competitive needs has a whole chapter on environmental safety and health which goes into a lot of detail on very specific things including some in the area of band of electronics however we haven't really done the kind of analysis that would put any particular number on what this need is i definitely agree with the most everyone affect the other research that is done it's a crummy like give me some overview of how you see this working let me add another question to the mix so many different agencies and organizations involved using different bookkeeping methods how are we going to specify that ten percent and make sure that it's fairly administered the two questions how do you do mr fairlie secondly what impact is likely to have on the other research program programs well let me try the second one first that's part of the reason i inserted the graph that i did in my in my written statement which lists the thirteen agencies that do  research against the five different question areas that need to report outlined as the questions it seems to me what would what would have to happen and i am no authority on governmental processes or appropriations or those kinds of things like that that's not where i come from but it seems like what you would then have to do is go down the thirteen agencies and essentially say ok and i got to spend six point seven percent and this you've got to spend x percent the p a you guys been eighteen point seven percent it's after that you'd have to do something because they set the goals and then you had somebody would have to then some the total and say we'll where nine point six we need point four and and increase their thing a bit or something like that i'd i don't understand that process that's not what i'm saying so i think there's a that's the practical issue that i see from our from our analysis because you have to understand these these organizations voluntarily joined the internet and in the early days of our first report we were twisting arms to get people to become part of the program to start with and by the way are still twisting a couple of arms which we think are important to join the o l and department of education has have come along so i think that that is an issue relative to how you would do it but that's in your hands you know i just point that out as as as a practical thing now obviously the other issue that you have is the one point five billion dollars supports a lot of buildings a lot of instrumentation a lot of other kinds of things if you actually talk about dollars and cents going to researchers the the the numbers the seventy six million that's talked about now is probably pretty close to a high single digit number i can't say a specific number because i don't have that breakout at my hands but it would obviously mean that the other research would be point nine what it's been but the other point that i would make that i think is very very important realizes that the application of the applications research in bodies e h s research in a number of areas for example at at and i h with our with our  discussions with them they have to worry about the health implications the example i like to use is in isolation nobody would agree to chemotherapy it's not good for you the plus is that it does good stuff eliminates cancer cells and so you have to have that balance now if you're working on a chemotherapy drug are you working on e h s issues or you're working on cancer cures that's a tough question to answer and how many dollars are you allocating to the h s p's what you're doing versus the application piece the way the numbers are done now and i'm sure the way andrew came up with thirteen million bucks is he says zero i suspect for the h s piece in that research i don't happen to agree with that assessment and i think the sixty eight million zero six is accurate thank you good example of your cancer case i don't know if you saw the sixty minutes program sunday evening where they were injecting gold nanoparticles into you need leadership from the top what do you mean by that somewhere above the federal agencies themselves probably with a in iris t p and i say that you go back to your question of how could you make this ten percent work you can see ways you could make it work if you actually had somebody at the top level that was working with the agencies to ensure that that ten percent funding was actually being correctly  to cross the agencies so you've got a partnership there but that partnership would only occur and only succeed if you had coordination and leadership from the highest possible level within government so that's what i was thinking about in terms of leadership it's actually making sure that somebody is pulling the process forward rather than it's being pushed forward from the bottom up in which case you've got it's pretty much lost free where you're going to do the right thing or the wrong thing that at least with leadership you're sure you're heading in something approximating to the right dime i'd also if you allow me like to the issue of what research is being done in the area of v h one s issues and also whether that will impact on looking at the development of applications research and basic research this is a critical issue because there is no point in funding basic research and applications research if we get the risk side of things wrong we just will not see any of that translated into viable products so we've got to put a realistic amount of our investment our research vestment into into understanding the risks now the way we do that it's got to be fairly sophisticated and mr kwame was right my thirteen million dollars is specifically looking at questions that ask things like if you had this detaining dioxide how am i going to use it safely that's a question you won't find out and said by looking at cancer research it's a question you would only answer by asking very specific questions but you've got to be more sophisticated than that you've also got to look at how other areas of research can be applied to understanding of our mental safety and health and if you look at our written testimony we actually delve into that level of sophistication but the first and foremost thing we need to do is ask the obvious questions how can you ensure that nanotechnology is being developed now as safe as possible comment since it has been so much of my life trying to improve math science education agree with your comments this is another example of an area where we desperately need education i can see all kinds of horror stories getting propagated we should procreate money to do all those different things but i think it has to be a coalition i think that it has to be a coalition of industry of government sponsored programs that that support akademi or the answers that we need to do at least in a timely fashion thank you all for your responses for your testimony i'm just fascinated with this topic because it has such enormous potential and it can change our lives in ways we can imagine and yet i don't think we quite have a handle on how we're going to use what we're likely to find and above what the dangers are and i'm not one of these people who cries wolf at every corner but i'm afraid given the history of what's happening with pesticides and other things that the public and especially the public service agencies are entities will be waiting to jump on the first incident and try to create a three mile island out of it so we face a very very ticklish job here together and i appreciate your willingness to come here and and help us understand it better thank you it's mr chair i too am very concerned about the educational piece there are a lot of things that i'm concerned about in nanotechnology i think it also has enormous potential for the future and i appreciate all of you be here to testify today when we had a hearing on this last fall several witnesses spoke of the importance of early nanotechnology education for generating awareness and excitement about nanotechnology particularly for young students and in fact the general public you feel like this legislation next complex has those two goals how the general public views nanotechnology you think people just  long ways to go i think some of the fundamental ideas that nanotechnology our society is pretty naive about most people don't even understand where the nano range lies they have a hard time distinguishing you know once something important underlying concepts the wonderful thing about nanotechnology is actually brought new ideas to us dr manere raised some of these that we now know that when you get down to the nano level materials now get new proper new property rights those ideas aren't even our science textbooks we're we have science textbooks out there that don't have those ideas in it kids are learning that you know properties are always the same they don't learn the idea that as you change scale properties change we have a long way to go our country is in serious serious trouble when it comes to educating our children with the population with respect nanotechnology we have some efforts i you know i know that the nice network the informal science education group is trying to do something through the museums the new center for technology now skills center for engineering and science is doing things but we have a lot more that we have to be able to do because it's not pervasive in our schools it certainly isn't in any of our standards and unless it gets in your standards unless we start testing for it we're not going to see it in schools so we have a long ways t really going to make a difference and if you want to speak about safety our kids can't the saw you know we no one knows you know we put that you mentioned sunscreen we don't know when you put this in makes us you know we don't see the white stuff on our face anymore that's good we look nice when we're at the beach and it is the way the ultraviolet light but we don't know if it's harmful to us and we don't have the resources people generally don't have the resources to make that decision they don't even know should i be worried about it that's a problem you know we can make the decision that ok i'm going to put this on and it might penetrate my skin and it might do something bad to me thirty years down the line but people should be able to make that decision and right now they don't have the intellectual resources even make those kind of decisions so i think we have a lot of work that we have to do and to educate our country so that we are more informed citizens what what's the one thing that you would do to stay with you guys what's the one thing we should do to fact make th public marwari make sure that our students are more aware of nanotechnology what is possible with nanotechnology as well as what are some of the problems with technology but i wish i could say there was one thing i  it isn't it's a big company i'm right you can give me two or three things all right so that's what i try to outline in my try to outline very clearly i think we really have to do sustain professional development i think we have to change our national science education standards we did our country good but they're old and they need to get revamped with new emerging new ideas and science we have to have new instructional materials we have to provide resources for our classrooms and we have to change your undergraduate programs but also that kids in the boat that are taking the five classes but also in our teacher preparation programs unless we do all those things we are always going to be in this mess that we are in this country we will never be you know we'll never see ourselves back in the forefront with respect the science  are very involved but i think this is something that both business and government are going to be involved with simply because you've got the two sides of education you've got the side of education where you're in fusing people so that they really understand and invest time in afghanistan and technology and become the next generation of nanotechnology ists but also you've got the aspect of empowering people to make informed decisions and actually engage in the process of nanotechnology and science in a broader startups in i destroy many of which i think you are familiar with and many of these startups are commercializing nanotechnologies developed from basic nano research in places like northwestern or the center information technology base startups they require more capital and they require much longer development cycles you know this is in the business model that you know when i was at kellogg friends could leave and start a company and scale something out in a couple of years on a couple  million dollars it takes a lot longer and it takes a lot more investment to make it go and so we often talk about the valley of death rate the period between you know the formation of the company when you start to generate revenues and cash flows and many of these technologies that come off whether they be argon federal laboratories or the start ups are platform oriented technologies and there's a fair amount of research and development to make it robust repeatable scalable and all those wonderful things before address the unique challenges i think they will be helpful i think there are there are other you know that i understand the s p r reauthorization is coming up and there are some changes in that program that that will also be helpful so they certainly move the needle in the right is one of the aspects that hasn't been mentioned yet with regard to that is the role of the states which is encouraged by the bill states obviously have a lot of interest in creating jobs locally and business new business locally today about what the government can and should be doing in and to what degree ten percent or more or less to address a just issue but what what's the what role can business  technology that's true with everything and you know that member companies you know it's important to stay in that most of these companies are ultimately in the research face they're helping a prototype most of these technologies are not yet to market  but they need to do the same thing to the safety testing and they do based upon what's known to ensure that those are safe that the government you know we've talked about needs to develop the standards and and  characterization protocols if you will to characterize these materials and the test methods to continue to evolve those based on the state of science having our best understanding of what is in fact safe and then industry needs to apply that  help control new materials generally whether or not they're classified as nanotechnology and as new nanomaterials come along we take a very hard look at each one before incorporating them we're also interested in the educational aspects on this we primarily do that in collaboration with each other through our trade association the semiconductor industry association which has sponsored some some studies in this area and we would be glad to chairman i actually sit here today is an example of the benefits of nanotechnology on march fifth but i had huge back surgery here i am back at work i have been for the last three weeks and  i have some of these the brilliance your industry implanted in my back so thank you very much i agree with what you're saying luckily we have three members on this committee myself  congressman ehlers and congresswoman bigger who are also on the education and labor sub committees and we will be a reauthorizing fixing making better no child left behind  therefore i was looking out here you beautiful man you're great you're all white you're all of us within ten or fifteen year span there well  you said it i didn't we've got to get every kid and every young person involved in the future of this country which is the new technologies nanotechnologies the green technologies that we are going to be able to keep in this country hopefully not given come up with all the good ideas and science and then give it away to the rest of the world we have to do that so i'm going to tie this right back now to education and labor and no child left behind i'd like to know from you what have your association or what have you done yourselves in order to give us feedback on what is missing in this picture we've got to hear it from you have you been participants if i can make a couple comments the first thing is open up we live in a society my parents for carpenters users or farmers the chairman indicated you could know what your parents did for a living that's no longer true for many people today i had a unique experience some thirty years ago which i will never forget we had our company picnic where a thousand people usually came of our nine thousand employees we decided to hold at the plant have an open house and twenty three thousand people showed up people want to know what mom and dad do for a living and we don't do that very well in our industries and we don't do it because of legal concerns insurance concerns that separate separate separate cetera et cetera we've got to change that we have got to open up and if there's any way legislation can do that i highly encourage it i'm no expert legislation but open up our company so people don't drive down rows of how buildings and haven't a clue what's going on in those buildings the second thing i would say is that when you're talking about education you've got to be careful this is the point i tried to make in my testimony relative now technology and technology what we've found is people don't go into technology they go into curing cancer they go into doing better energy research they go into you know going to the moon they go into application kinds of things and nanotechnology is a tool to that end what we've learned the universe held for you berkeley we're serving the engineering advisory board is that this center for information technology in the interests of society citrus is drawing students right and left because they see end applications for getting that deadly degree that emmie degree that whatever degree it is they want to see societal things i think is you introduce that to youngsters at an early age kids are fascinated by this stuff but they want to see so what right do we have you don't know what if i could build on that for a second the question was asked earlier about businesses are all of educating the general public and i think we're just starting to move into the second wave of nanotechnology marshall is a show where you're really seeing some of these you know very exciting you know transformational applications like solar energy there's a portfolio of companies that are really changing the cost structure of solar energy so that we're going to see some meaningful new penetration that technology has slid sixty minutes episode was just referenced in terms of addressing cancer and so as more and more of these compelling applications come to market i think it will inspire the result saying success is one percent inspiration ninety nine percent perspiration and he said that if you don't have the inspiration first you don't undertake the perspiration to follow and so i think we'll see more of that the other thing and that we've we sat in our previous testimony on this issue is that we think it's important that people also think about education from the student's view and not just a teacher with absolutely agree with all of the investments that need to be made right in terms of teacher capability standards  and all that but also add up to a you know student centric view of the world and engage in more self directed learning and inquiry driven learning that's applied and helps people relate as they are educated to adult say something then you tell me if there's anybody disagrees with this from what i'm hearing today that everybody in the panel believes that now technology is so has such great significant promise for our society that it should be a priority  for the government and society to develop it and to prepare for it is that what you all agree with that is would be a priority for us let me tell you the biggest impediment that i have seen to progress is that people who believe things that should be a priority for our society are unwilling to prioritize and i will tell you that we don't need people to come here and tell us simply to spend more money on something everybody will tell us to spend more money on something now what i need from you gentlemen is for you to tell me exactly how important it is compared to something else that you would like us to get the funding from because i'm open to that idea for example fusion was a great dream i mean ever since i was a kid i saw little films of fusion was going to come along we spent billions of dollars on fusion research and it continues today i have asked people you know what's the potential of that and they said well no if you just spend another billion dollars we'll know what the potential is what you guys seem to know what the potential of nanotechnology is do you think that we should if you don't if you join or someone else you can point to we're spending a lot of money  for tech education k twelve there's no way that sufficient spending money there's no way what now no way that the decisions that you can have two hundred ten or two and twenty programs and be efficient i'd look at those and try to figure out how to spend half the money but do it more ok so you don't want to define you want to get more efficient isn't there anybody that ever got it and half well could someone come here and tell me what area of research is now wasted as compared t money that you want to spend on this you know ok well let me tell you something don't people in the scientific community should not come to congress and tell us that they're willing to say how important some unless they're willing to compare it to what something is less important because that doesn't mean anything we have a limited budget we want to do what's right by that budget i personally would think that nanotechnology should receive a large portion of the money that we should spend  our that we will say by eliminating fusion energy research because it hasn't panned out back to education to my friend who is about to talk about education one of the problems that what we have found in this committee is that sociology teachers a history teachers and english literature teachers and physical education teachers and basket weaving teachers in a high school are demanding that they receive the same pay level as mathematics teachers and science teachers do support a differential in pay that would permit schools to pay more money to education to education to mathematics and science teachers i think we have high quality math and science teachers but you're not willing to say that more there's another thing if there are these heavy interest groups in our society we know that teachers unions are not going to support somebody else getting more money because that happens to be important for our society you know if it takes getting good science teachers and we need good science teachers if it takes pain then more money then we should pay them more money paying them more money than the other it's that's when we can attract our best if in the way we can attract  yes graduates to go on the science teaching then i would say let's give them more money it's the only way we're going to do it and it's as if that's the case i mean we should do it because we have a lot of really smart people and we really need a minute and we can sing their accolades all day long but the bottom line is we want more young people to get involved we want higher quality math and science teachers we've got to pay more money and we're going to pay more money to our engineers and our scientists rather than having them tied to sociologists and and political science political scientists whatever that word is he's spoken about the kinds of things that need to be done in the area of teacher preparation and curricula and those kinds of things and if you're suggesting that there's over two hundred programs that could be cut that's in education i'd like to know how diverse those programs are before they're consolidated or cut because the last eight years of my friend you know that education and everything else has be including a t p and other things that require innovative people to be funded to work with the science along so i think the idea of participating and following through with some of the ideas you do have about how to improve education would be of a great great help but being a teacher myself i would take this moment mr chairman if i could i'll just tell you that all those programs and all the subject matters are important for the development of a good citizen for development as cited that can reach highest point music or in arts for all imbedded with science and like nano you know once we understand that no we understand that everything that functions in this world is that a national scale is just that we're just getting there you can take nano away from technology and accept that these will be the same we suspect that with nano and us messing around that whole area would push moore's law another fifty years out then probably more and so i don't disagree that we should be putting money into basic research i don't disagree that we should be putting money from the feds to partner with industry and with the nasa research to get beyond the the gap or the value of this so they can get to commercialization but i the countries and say they're doing better than we are i think we better be prepared to have the details there because you know when china would be was a china has three hundred thousand juniors you better be prepared to say all of those how many other kinds of engineers and technologists that we have that think new things rather than being civil engineers or the other kinds in your engineers that they need for their all development of their infrastructure in their own country so you know i think that to be precise in our terminology for size so we can so we can solve the kinds of problems we face as a country together and then move forward without fear of fear and investing our own children in the proper way and that challenge will have to go right down to how we plan our cities how we look at the issue of equity as the way we do things with education is not equities parity and unless we're willing to change our whole assessment of what a neighborhood is what a school is and how we fund our children then we're not prepared to move forward in education just like now with technology it's an eye opener things change when we get to that point and i appreciate your work all of your work  it if i could just make one quick comment in terms of what we're doing in you know now tech companies are relatively small in the grand scheme of things but we're starting the process of addressing such occasion several member companies that are in the instrumentation have tried have done our to create lower cost machinery so that we can get something that's feibel to get into the community colleges and the classroom so that people can have those hands on learning experiences one to the alliance itself is working with companies to try to set up an internship program in some of these pioneering nanotech companies so that folks can experience firsthand some of the transformational work that's taking place to lead that inspiration it's not going to you know solve things and not going to do it overnight by any stretch  imagination but it's a start and you gotta start somewhere was trying to let me just i shouldn't have to remind everyone but i will once again that last year this committee passed out on a bipartisan basis the president said  issue of our students and the math and science area recognizing that it all starts with the teacher and that we certainly are always bright as any other country around but you have to have teachers that not only know how to teach but also have a core knowledge within that subject area very quickly one of things that we discovered was that sixty three percent of the middle school teachers had neither major nor a certification to teach math ninety three percent of the physical side teachers had neither a major sort of a cation so no matter how good you might be in terms of your ability you have to have a core knowledge and that's why within the department or rather the national science foundation there is a program called the noice scholarship program that we scaled out that will provide scholarships for those students that want to go into math or science and education and agree to teach for five years it will also folks who want to go into pure research you know we really don't have to argue about this much longer i mean we have a plan when norm augustine brought in his group that reported back on the rising about the gathering storm i told him that they didn't bring us anything we didn't know they just put it in a good package we said we don't need to study anymore we just need to do it and that means funding it and i have a letter here that i think it was two hundred twenty five major industries have side recommending that as i say this trailers and bipartisan effort in this bigger who's not here now are trying to get so hopefully we're going to be able to see that funding and from that we're going to see the realization research right now is really focused on how do we replace this incumbent technology that we call cmos for short it's just an acronym i won't go into the details but it's a technology that we've used for over thirty years now it's the it's the the workhorse of all electronics big and small that you see throughout the world today and we've been miniaturizing it or scaling it we like to say in the industry for these thirty years and it's reaching some pretty fundamental limits in terms of what it's cost per function to try to make it smaller when its energy efficiency is what its speed can be how much density of storage of information you can get with it and so the really big grand challenge that the industry is looking at right now and then electronics is how can we find a new component to basically a new transistor which is the guts of  that can take us to the next level in cost and energy efficiency and just pure performance and so this is basically the challenge that the nano electronics research initiative has taken up partnering with so far the n s f and nist and the federal government and with a number of states across the country and we're hoping that before we have a situation where cmos completely runs out of gas that we definitely have a new switch that can replace today's transistor a little thing maybe i could comment you specifically said electronics but as you probably know there's an awful lot of things going on in photonics where photons are replacing electrons to do certain functions particularly the communications sector and today you know we're able now to put eighty simultaneous t v channels on under a single fiber that's largely due to materials from the standpoint of the positing solar cells so if they lower the cost dramatically again not electronics but that's material science but it's still nano and it's going to affect electronics because it creates  a creates electrons in that particular case so there's two other examples photonics and and energy well and jump in there you mention that about about solar what has what else is going on in terms of nano research and development in regard to energy but what kind of projects are going on right now i think there's you know tremendous activity and yet opportunity for more with respect to now technology and her gee i think there's clear recognition now of that that some immense impact the potential impact of using nanomaterials for solar energy to absorb more of the energy spectrum and to deposit it in  and that but not just that firefly and only company has figured out how to actually get the lead out of lead acid battery some give new life to that technology which then becomes an important part of a new integrated solar energy system fuel cells and i think as you california national systems institute was founded back in two thousand and two and to use the campuses has been very engaged in that process was both u c l a and u c santa barbara which i attended both of them so the subject matter  of great interest to me as well i just want to ask one quick question and i think it's to dr maynard's office and some of the work that you've done what can we learn from the european union's approach to nanotechnology r research i don't think anybody has really got this fixed yet but if you look at what europe is doing taking a far more strategic and systematic approach to risk based research so that currently in this framework reset the program whether investing a lot of research across the board nanotechnology but they specifically focused a number of very targeted research programs asking very specific questions like what is the toxicity of setting down a materials how do you measure exposure to nanomaterials and half a dozen other projects so what they're doing is starting out by asking what do we need to know we're going to make this technology succeed and then they're asking groups of researchers to address those very specific questions and they're putting a lot of money into it as well but they're also doing something else which isn't radio occurring in the states and that is that partnering between government and industry so every european research project that comes out also has its industrial park knows and that means not only you leveraging money from within government and industry but you're also using the expertise that you have within those industrial partners who are developing the applications and the technologies which we hopefully going to see being used so that is a big difference there and of course as i show even back as far as two thousand and six if you look at research which is primarily focused on understanding risk so these very very specific questions that are actually investing aware investing more in europe than we were in the u s funding in the supplemental for our math and science education for the repeats bill let me also say that i think this is a good work all of this is this is working project or proper process that we have a good draft here we welcome the good advice we have we want to get additional advice we want to get the best bipartisan bill that we can put together on this very important subject and so i think our witnesses for being a part of it today we will leave the record open