good morning the committee will come to order pursuant to notice the committee on science technology meets to consider the following measure h r fifty nine forty the national nanotechnology initiative amendments act of two thousand and eight we will now proceed with the markup h r fifty nine forty is a bipartisan bill which i had i and ranking member  along with twenty three additional democrat and republican members of the committee i want to thank ranking member hall for working with me in cooperation or cooperative way to develop this legislation and to bring it before the committee today this committee was instrumental statute based on findings and recommendations from the four hearings during the current congress that examined various aspects of the internet the bill also reflects recommendations from formal reviews of the n i  by the national academy of sciences and the n n a advisory panel and finally we circulated the draft bill wadded to the various communities of interest and have incorporated many of us gestures we received h r fifty nine forty  substantially alter in an ad but makes adjustments to some of the priorities of the program and strengthens one of the core components environmental and safety research with regard to risk reduction research a key provision of the bill is to require that the in develop a plan for the environmental and safety research component and a roadmap for infant implementing it which includes explicit near term and long term goals and the funding required by goal and by agency the bill also assigned responsibility to a senior official at the office of science or technology policy to oversee this planning and implementation process in filing the bill requires accountability by stablish a public accessible database containing information on the content and funding of each environmental health and safety research project supported another important area addressed by the legislative action or legislation involves ways to capture the economic benefits of nanotechnology we need to ensure that this nation successfully capitalizes on commercial developments that will flow from the new discoveries resulting from our substantial investment in research it's now time to give increased consideration to rebalancing in a investment toward activities to foster the transfer of new discoveries of commerce products and and processes to that in h r three thousand and forty specify steps for increasing the number of nanotechnology related projects supported under the prototyping and proof of concept studies also the bill authorizes large scale focused multi agency research and development initiatives in areas of national need for example these efforts could explore development of nanotechnology based devices harvesting solar energy more cheaply or perhaps nano scale sensors for detecting cancer and drug delivery devices for treating the disease and finally i want to highlight some of the provisions of the bill that address another key issue future stam workforce needs one provision builds on the n s s f math and science partnership program to use tech nanotechnology education activities as a vehicle to raise the interest of secondary school students in possible stem careers the key component of these new partnerships is involvement by now technology companies in offering hands own learning opportunities at their facilities for students and teachers another education provision supports the development of undergraduate courses of study in nanotechnology feels to help prepare future technicians scientists and engineers who will be needed to meet the demands of and astri as nano technology commercialization continues to expand h r fifty nine forty is an excellent bipartisan bill that will improve and strengthen the n n a and thereby keep the united states at the forefront of nanotechnology to date we have receive letters of support for the bill from the semiconductor industry association the nano business alliance the american chemical society and the national science teachers association arch my colleagues who support h r fifty nine forty and to continue to work with me to ensure passage by the house and filing that with during this congress i now recognize mr hall to present his opening statement mr chairman i thank you for your statement and of course was pleased to sponsor  the twenty first century nanotechnology research and development act with you please to join us in original co sponsor of israel authorization which is before us today we're using nanotechnology to help create clean secure fordable energy medical devices and drugs sensors to detect harmful chemical and biological agents local filters to provide clean drinking water and techniques to clean up hazardous chemicals in the environment i'm especially pleased that this bill addresses the emerging fields of nano electronics a field that texas instruments has been very involved in and this is just the beginning of the reauthorizing national nanotechnology program certainly should be a priority we've worked together on this legislation from them again and thus far it's been a very pleasant and very bipartisan effort while it's still not a perfect  process is meant to make sure that we're careful to allow this multi agency program which seems to be working well to continue to have the flexibility it needs to do its work with that man over prescriptive up to this point i think we've managed to do that and i look forward to most important technological key to our nation's future economic growth now only is america currently at the forefront of nanotech innovation my home state of illinois is an international leader in many nanotech fields but we cannot in this fast changing world in this act to help get us over some of the hurdles that could disrupt our progress in unleashing this new industrial revolution one of these hurdles is technology transfers chairman gordon mention and from my own experiences in illinois with two national as well as numerous research universities including northwestern university and universe of illinois which are leading the way in and take research i understand how important it is to be able to  technology transfer mungo the provisions bill provides companies with access to research facilities encourages now tech related projects under f b i r s t t r and at nist coordinates federal with state now tak initiatives as a former professor i also understand education is critical for promoting american now tech innovation in this bill makes important step forward in promoting nanotech education in the secondary and post secondary levels in addition i want to commend the bill's focus on areas of national importance especially nano electronics and nano energy we all understand that energy represents one of today's greatest challenges and now technology is already playing a major role in facilitating green energy from increasing the effectiveness of solar cells to saving energy by reducing friction and pipelines innovative nanotechnologies have shown their promise in furthering our efforts to become more energy independent but we must find more ways for the federal government to help increase the promotion of green energy i think this is critical for our future we we talk about instantly in this committee and in promoting green energy critical for national security and for the environment finally i firmly believe that the feel of an electronics will be as important if not more important than microelectronics as chairman gordon reiki member hall mentioned many experts are predicting that by two thousand and twenty we will be not be able to reduce the size of circuits we will need to find a new technology to replace the traditional semiconductor device this is really critical for the future now alectryon it will likely allow us to leave this technological barrier and we are why six l or eight research invest heavily in this field in order to remain ahead of the curve and this is one of the most critical fields for american technology that northwestern university university of illinois at chicago and it champagne urbana as well argonne national lab are doing great work right now is chairman is next now technology moves from multibillion to multi trillion dollar industry in just the next few years there's great promise is in store for economic development and job creation is critical we do all we can to help ensure that americans lead the way and then take innovation and we reap the benefits for our nation as we improve the quality of life for the world this bill is a great next step now look forward to working with you in the rest of the committee in moving it forward thank you thank you no one else has an opening statement then i will ask unanimous consent that the bill is considered as read and open to it members at any point and that the members proceed with the amendments in the order of the roster without objection so ordered the first member on the roster is a m offered by the gentle lady from texas miss johnson are you ready to proceed with your amendment this act of two thousand and eight my mandate is focused on section four of the original twenty first century nato technology research and development that section describes an advisory panel to be established by the president the panel shall consists primarily of members from academic institutions and industry this advisory panel provided by sue the president on matters relating to the national may no technology program the original b goes on to say that the advisory panel member shall be qualified to provide that advice and information on a no take research development demonstrations education takes transfer and other matters as stated in the legislation this is this advice includes friends and they know take science and engineering progress made in the implementing the program the need to revise the program the balance among different components of the program as well as other forms of advice my man that would make an addition to subsection be within section four of the original bill and the amendment states that at least one member of the advisory panel and shall be an individual employed by representing a minority serving institution i am certain that my colleagues on this committee understand why i feel this with asian is important african americans and hispanics are severely under represented in careers in the physical sciences and engineering these fields are the foundation of nato technology and i've been trying this for a long time the reasons for the disparities are complex so subtle biases are pervasive man made it ensures that someone representing an artist serving institution sit on this advisory panel minority serving institutions also called him if i include historically black colleges and universities has to  hispanic serving institutions and tribal colleges and universities there are one hundred chan historically black colleges in the us today and even more predominately black colleges they are approximately three hundred hispanic serving institutions and they are thirty to travel colleges and universities the president shall have no trouble in finding one person who is well qualified for one of those many institutions to serve on the advisory panel consider the important contributions that the m s m make regarding education and educated workforce needless to say the majority in this country that will be a new one come to an that can this birth federal financial aid with the enroll nearly sixty percent of the four point seven million minority undergraduates and two thousand the historically black college university graduates forty percent  more of all african americans who receive degrees in physics chemistry ice astronomy environmental sciences mathematics and i might add biology and i might add engineering and almost every sta b use lead the nation's larger better equipped colleges and producing black graduates the national science foundation found that african americans who graduate from the starkly black college university undergraduate institutions reserve that seat for them one out of many and thank you mr chairman and ranking member and i ask for support for this amendment thank you ms johnson is a further discussion on the amendment if no the vote occurs only minimal all in favor details educational activities education is the key to ensuring that out through to work force is competitive we must captivate young people's imaginations from as early as elementary school and middle school to get them interested in they know technology i am glad that the nato technology and this it contains good education activities that are inclusive to all students my man which seeks to ensure that such educational activities include environmental health and safety considerations more specifically at the end of section three it adds a brief section to the societal dimensions of a no technology education activities b states add to it is supported under the education and societal dimensions program component area are in a success a program component area that involve informal pre college undergraduate natal technology education shall include education regarding the environmental and health and safety and other societal aspects during the development of age of fifteen and forty we receive feedback from environmental groups that federal made on technology education programs needed stronger environmental and health components ma'am and it respects the requests of the environmental community it ensures that education activities within the education and societal dimensions programs contain those appropriate safety considerations mr chairman there was a previous version of this amendment that contain the words green and they know technology m words green and a no technology i agreed to remove it from my amendment however the condition was that the term green arrow technology shall be included in report language it is my hope that the legislation and her willingness to work with us on her amendments on this amendment simply include environmental health and safety education as part of any education activities supported under the witnesses talked about the importance of having a strong pipeline of students who are familiar with and excited about the nanotechnologies potential and procedures this amendment simply requires that the recipients of funding and i would make available via remote access where appropriate and not cost prohibitive access to secondary high school students and teachers this is particularly important because the infrastructure the equipment that goes into nanotechnology is prohibitively  expensive to be available to high school students yet we want that part of our pipeline to get in early early on folks in disadvantaged portions of our cities or people in rural districts like i represent could nevertheless have high school students have access to state of the art equipment and the enthusiasm and excitement that goes with that and thereby when they go on to college hit the ground running as it were the amendment should not be prohibitively expensive in any way shape or form we've talked to nanotech research was recommended to us by some of our witnesses but in this case is not just for educational purposes but for other researchers to be able to utilize nanotech facilities as the field of nanotechnology continues to grow we have to ensure that we have the available instruments and facilities to meet the growing demand but we have finite resources and imagine it will be difficult to get everyone who needs it access to such equipment in the future and for this reason we need to do what we can to develop and foster the technology to allow remote access to these facilities this amendment requires the national nanotechnology coordinating office and the national nanotech national nanotechnology advisory panel to look at the compare capabilities of nanotechnology research facilities and cern whether they are adequate to provide individuals the means of network technology access to use the answer may show instrumentation and equipment at the facilities it also charges the advisory panel with turman in the level of funding that would be needed to support acquisition of network technology to provide this capability at nanotech research facilities in essence what we're doing is as we look at the existing capacity of the facilities one of the factors we look at during a public input process which is included in the end and i already as pass furthermore imo the staff of the instructed to prepare the legislative report make necessary technical and conforming changes and this to chairman think oh necessary step to bring the mail before the house for consideration back question is on anyone want to vote no so let me be clear i did not want to describe one option here ok that is have it in the bill is reported favorably without objection the motion is reconsidered and laid upon the table members will have t calendar days in which to submit supplemental minority or additional views on the measure ending monday may the twelfth at nine a m i move pursuant to qualify one of rule twenty two of the rules the house of representatives that the committee authorized the chairman to offer such motions as may be necessary in the house to adopt and pass h r fifty nine forty the national nanotechnology initiative amendments act of two thousand and eight as admitted without objection so ordered and i want to thank all the members for attendance and for all the members working together on getting you know a good deal and also a very important bill and again just because things are controversial don't mean they're not important thank you very much