Statement of Thomas Zacharia
Director, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Before theCommittee on Energy and Natural Resources
U.S. Senate
August 5, 2021

Hearing on The Role of and Programs within
the Department of Energy’s Office of Science
Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member Barrasso, and members of the Committee: Thank you forthe opportunity to appear before you today. It is an honor to provide this testimony about the roleand programs of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
My name is Thomas Zacharia and, since 2017, I have served as the director of Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, where I began work as a postdoctoral researcher in 1987. The Departmentof Energy’s 17 National Laboratories support the department’s missions of energy, scientificdiscovery, national security, and environmental management.
The DOE Office of Science, as the nation’s largest funder of the physical sciences, oversees 10of the National Laboratories, including Oak Ridge. We are the largest Science Laboratory, but
we also play key roles in applied energy and national security because many of the
breakthroughs we pursue in basic science have important applications across government and theprivate sector.
The scientific discoveries of the National Laboratories are an engine for American innovationand economic growth, and I thank the Members of this Committee for recognizing theimportance of the Office of Science and its Laboratories. Recent legislation introduced or passedin Congress demonstrates the priority you place on our competitiveness and on creating
economic opportunities while addressing climate and ensuring our national security.
The Office of Science’s $7 billion budget provides direct funding for scientific research andfosters technology development. It also funds construction and operation of the User Facilities
and laboratory infrastructure that hosts over 36,000 scientists and engineers from laboratories,
universities, and industry each year. Continued investments in facilities and infrastructure arenecessary for the United States to address climate change, grow important technical industries,
and remain an international leader in areas such as high-performance computing, materials
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science, fusion energy, quantum science, biology, the frontiers of physics, and critical materials
and minerals.
Across the Office of Science, there are 28 User Facilities in total. It is important to note thatthese facilities—which include supercomputing centers, advanced light and neutron sources,
particle accelerators, and specialized facilities for nanoscience, genomics, and other disciplines
essential for sustaining U.S. leadership in research and development—are available for use by
researchers outside the Department of Energy and its laboratories. While the Office of Science
provides National Laboratories with the funding to maintain and operate the facilities,
universities and industry routinely use them to conduct research with broad application andbenefit.
This leads to a great deal of collaboration among the National Laboratories, universities, andindustry. Each sector of the U.S. innovation ecosystem brings unique and important strengths.
Academia focuses on fundamental research and the advancement of knowledge. Industry is
primarily concerned with the near-term development and application of research outcomes.
National Laboratories serve as integrators, spanning the full spectrum from fundamental toapplied research as well as the demonstration and deployment of technologies. The Labs provide
a bridge over the so-called “Valley of Death” between innovative ideas and prototype
technologies on one side and the scale necessary for commercial success and societal impact on
the other.
The Office of Science also sponsors workforce training programs for students and educators that
promote careers in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). With that
support, the National Laboratories provide unique opportunities for STEM workforce
development, including programs that increase engagement from underrepresented communities.
The Labs offer direct access to leading scientists, world-class scientific User Facilities andinstrumentation, and large-scale, multidisciplinary research programs unavailable in universities
or industry. The Labs’ programs annually serve over 250,000 K-12 students, 22,000 K-12
educators, 4,000 undergraduate interns, 3,000 graduate students, and 1,600 postdoctoral
researchers.
Our system is effective and is the envy of other nations. Unfortunately, we are seeing more andmore that our competitors and adversaries are copying our model.
For example, we know other nations such as China are constructing research centers that mirror
our National Laboratories, in a bid to outpace us. They seek to build more powerful equipment
than ours, and they are recruiting scientists worldwide by promising the latest technology andcapabilities.
If the United States is to continue to be the destination of choice for STEM careers, we mustensure consistent, strategic investment in the infrastructure, programs, and partnerships of the
Office of Science. This is an important and effective mechanism for keeping talented scientists
and engineers working here to make us more competitive.

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By leveraging our world-leading facilities, assembling large multi-disciplinary teams acrossinstitutions, and pursuing use-inspired, mission-driven research, the National Laboratories offer
our best and brightest the opportunity to translate fundamental discoveries into impactful
applications that address the most pressing scientific and technical challenges facing the nation.
This has always been the National Laboratories’ role.
Our first scientists, engineers, and technicians applied new discoveries in fundamental physics toharness the atom during the Manhattan Project. They worked with an urgency prompted byuncertainty about the technological progress being made in Germany, where atomic fission had
been discovered. After the existential threat of World War II was past, the technical staff who
understood the physics, chemistry, and engineering necessary to pursue nuclear technology
quickly recognized a variety of new uses with broad benefits for society, from large-scale
production of isotopes for medical treatments, research, and industry; to tools for studying andimproving materials; to research in biology and ecology essential for protecting people and theenvironment. These were in addition to the (emission-free) nuclear energy that would soon
power a significant proportion of U.S. homes and businesses as well as the U.S. fleet ofsubmarines and aircraft carriers—the nuclear Navy.
From the very beginning, then, the National Laboratories brought together the best in scientificdiscovery and technical expertise from government, industry, and academia to solve the mostimportant and most difficult challenges of the day. The work of the National Laboratories has
given rise to innovations in materials, manufacturing, medicine, space exploration,transportation, and a host of other fields.
This is a role the National Laboratories and the Office of Science continue to fulfill today. We
stand ready to help solve the world’s most urgent problems. Here are a few examples:
COVID-19 Response
In March 2020, the Department of Energy established the National Virtual Biotechnology
Laboratory in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The NVBL connected scientists andengineers across the National Laboratory System who offered deep expertise for multiple frontsof the war against COVID-19. The NVBL’s work—conducted in partnership with industry,
academia, and other federal agencies—included development of analytical technologies andtrace detection; design and discovery of antiviral drugs and vaccines; predictive modeling for
emergency response and epidemiology; and molecular and structural biology.
In a matter of weeks, the NVBL helped drive research that mitigated shortages in medical
supplies; modeled and predicted pandemic spread; improved and validated testing procedures;assessed the transmittal of the virus in buildings; and supported the development of new antiviraldrugs.
At Oak Ridge, the contributions of the DOE’s Office of Science were evident.
Oak Ridge reallocated all available neutron scattering resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor(HFIR) and Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) to combat COVID-19. HFIR and the SNS are User
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Facilities in the Office of Science’s Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program and were quickly
mobilized to study crucial components of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. They
provided novel insights into the virus’s main protease, the enzyme responsible for enabling thevirus to reproduce; the spike protein, a barb-like structural protein that covers the surface of thevirus and triggers the infection process; and the interactions, or docking, of COVID-19 drugcandidates with the virus to better understand how these molecules might behave in human cells.
The data collected from neutron scattering experiments also supported university research related
to drug docking simulations performed on the Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge
Leadership Computing Facility, a User Facility of the Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific
Computing Research (ASCR) program. Oak Ridge was just one of the National Laboratories,
federal agencies, industry, and academic leaders providing access to the world’s most powerfulhigh-performance computing resources through the Office of Science’s COVID-19 HighPerformance Computing Consortium.
Among applications of Office of Science computing power, researchers used Summit to simulate
the virus’ spike protein in numerous environments, including within the SARS-CoV-2 viralenvelope, comprising 305 million atoms—the most comprehensive simulation of the COVID19–causing virus performed to date. The results have led to discoveries of one of the mechanisms
the virus uses to evade detection as well as a characterization of interactions between the spike
protein and the protein that the virus takes advantage of in human cells.
At Oak Ridge, we also worked with medical suppliers and the manufacturing supply chain to
speed and expand production capabilities for test kits and personal protective equipment. We
applied the materials expertise from our Office of Science X-ray, neutron, and nanosciencefacilities to the production of material for N95 masks that could filter out the virus. Two industry
partners—Cummins and DemeTECH—put the national labs’ discovery to work producing
millions of masks used throughout the U.S., as well as adding thousands of jobs.
Advancing Secure Manufacturing
In addition to the Office of Science’s User Facilities, at Oak Ridge we host User Facilities suchas the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility and Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, bothmanaged by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. These facilities allow
us to leverage the Laboratory’s Office of Science expertise in materials, manufacturing, andhigh-performance computing to improve the way we design and build virtually anything—frombuildings to nuclear reactors to automobiles to components for the Air Force and Navy.
We have highly leveraged these capabilities, with MDF supporting some 30 startups and morethan 100 industry fellows, working with 200 U.S. companies and 50 universities, and helping toestablish seven U.S. companies in the new industry of large-scale additive manufacturing. For
example, we have a partnership with the University of Maine Advanced Structures andComposites Center to 3D print with wood products, creating a new market for Maine’s forest
products industry.

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Among private-sector examples is a five-year agreement with General Electric to apply the Lab’s
research to development of products including a turboprop engine that includes a dozen 3Dprinted parts and can be printed as a single unit, instead of assembled from some 800 pieces.
Because U.S. manufacturers are one of the top targets for cyber criminals and nation-state
adversaries, Oak Ridge is also a partner in the University of Texas at San Antonio’s
Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII). Integration across the supply chain
network and an increased use of automation applied in manufacturing processes can makeindustrial infrastructures vulnerable to cyber-attacks, impacting production of energy
technologies such as electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. By leveraging deep
expertise based on Office of Science capabilities, in areas such as digital manufacturing, cyberphysical security, sensing, and predictive AI, CyManII will not only make manufacturers moreenergy efficient but will help them to become more resilient and globally competitive against our
nation’s adversaries.
Finally, applying National Laboratories’ fundamental research to the recycling and reuse ofplastics and composite waste material holds significant benefit both for the environment andindustry. According to DOE, 5.7 billion metric tons of discarded plastic have never been
recycled. The vast amount of discarded waste presents a critical need for new technology in thearea of plastics recycling. In addition, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data indicatesthat 75 percent of plastic waste is sent to landfills, representing almost one-fifth of all landfilled
solid waste, with the rest incinerated. Today’s composite waste materials can become
tomorrow’s valuable raw materials, and researchers at Oak Ridge are deploying new processes
based on fundamental chemical and biological research that convert feedstocks used in advanced
manufacturing into reusable materials.
The Energy-Climate-Water Nexus
The United States cannot meet the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 merely by
pursuing existing technologies more aggressively. To reverse current climate trends, we needbreakthrough discoveries of new phenomena and materials—new discoveries that will add to ourunderstanding of the materials and processes of the physical world. The National Laboratories
and the Office of Science, through grant programs and its world-class research centers, aredesigned to tackle such complex problems.
Areas in which Office of Science programs and the National Laboratories offer significant
resources and expertise include:•

Critical and sustainable materials discovery to advance clean energy technologies such asbatteries, solar, and clean hydrogen, as well as advanced carbon capture and utilization atscale.

•

Experimentally measuring and modeling the earth’s climate system to provide a fuller
understanding of the challenge and to better inform the delivery of innovative solutions at
scale.

5•Engineering biology and biotechnology to develop clean solutions to difficult challenges
such as drop-in sustainable aviation fuel, bioproducts that sequester carbon indefinitely, andsustainable replacements for plastics and other environmentally harmful products.

In the area of biological and environmental systems science, the Office of Science’s Biologicaland Environmental Research (BER) program supports scientific User Facilities to understandcomplex biological, earth, and environmental systems and ensure energy and infrastructure
security, energy independence, and economic prosperity.
This program also supports four Bioenergy Research Centers aimed at removing barriers to avibrant and economically viable domestic bioenergy industry. They are led by National
Laboratories or universities and pursue national goals for reducing carbon emissions throughconversion of abundant non-food plant resources into affordable transportation fuels for lightduty vehicles and aviation. Their work translating fundamental research for applied energy
applications helps to ensure processes can be scaled from fundamental discoveries to industrialscale applications. The centers bring together diverse experts from across the Office of Science
complex, academia, and industry, and each center takes a distinctive approach, from developing
high-yielding bioenergy crops to engineering microbes to efficiently convert plants into valuable
fuels and chemicals. West Virginia University, the University of Colorado and Colorado State,
Oklahoma’s Noble Research Institute, and Oregon’s GreenWood Resources are among partners
in ORNL’s Center for Bioenergy Innovation, supporting long-term research projects that haveresulted in multiple licensing agreements related to the development of more efficient biofuels
through a better understanding of plant genetics.
The Office of Science also sponsors large-scale field experiments in the Arctic (NGEE-Arctic),
the tropics (NGEE-Tropics), and in the forests of Minnesota (SPRUCE) to study and predict theeffects of climate change. Data from the field is critical to reducing uncertainty and informs
Earth System Models that predict the future of our planet. Oak Ridge manages the data center for
the Office of Science’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility, which
curates millions of measurements of sunlight, cloud characteristics, particles in the air and otheratmospheric phenomena influencing global climate, gathered by sensors from the Americas to
the Azores. ARM makes the data available to atmospheric scientists through a Data Discovery
tool that facilitates the accurate representation of clouds and cloud physics in atmosphericmodels, including the DOE Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM).
At Oak Ridge, we established the Climate Change Science Institute (CCSI) in 2009 to apply
multidisciplinary expertise and big science capabilities—including world-classsupercomputers—to predict the future of our changing planet and to evaluate potential solutions
at the intersection of climate, clean energy, national security, and environmental justice.
Finally, the Office of Science and its laboratories are leading contributors in the effort todramatically increase secure, affordable, energy efficient supplies of clean water. The multi-lab
National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), headquartered at Berkeley Lab, brings together
a world-class team of industry and academic partners to examine the critical technical barriers

6and research needed to radically lower the cost and energy of desalination. NAWI’s focus is on
early-stage research on desalination and associated water-treatment technologies.
Technologies of the Future
The Office of Science and the National Laboratories are at the forefront of advancing emerging
technologies and doing so with the experience, talent, and mechanisms necessary to protect
national interests. The National Laboratories operate with strict protocols regarding
development, review, and sharing of new technologies as well as analysis of dual use
implications, consideration of counterintelligence risks, and the involvement of foreign scientists
or companies. This includes our obligation to alert authorities and policymakers to over-thehorizon technical threats that may impact American lives and undermine future U.S. economic
competitiveness.
Among the specialized technical areas in which the DOE Office of Science and its laboratories
are making important contributions:
Quantum: In quantum computing and information systems, the Office of Science and its
National Laboratories are leading five National Quantum Information Science Research Hubs—each with diverse members that include American industry, universities, and National
Laboratories. DOE funds the hubs thanks to bipartisan congressional support for the National
Quantum Initiative and subsequent appropriations. These centers are part of a coordinated, multiagency effort with the National Science Foundation and National Institute for Standards andTechnology and serve as an excellent example of a complementary, multi-agency approach toensuring U.S. leadership in an emerging field. Better understanding of the laws of quantum
mechanics, discovery of new materials, and development of new quantum computing, sensing,and networking technologies could have revolutionary implications for data storage and the
secure transfer of information over long distances. This research could also lead tounprecedented improvements in the accuracy and efficiency of quantum algorithms, quantumclassical operations, and even quantum computers.
Computing: The National Laboratories operate two of the world’s three fastest supercomputers,
and ORNL will deliver the first Exascale computer later this year, Frontier, which is expected tobe the new fastest computer in the world. By nature of their design, exascale systems will also be
the most powerful artificial intelligence machines in the world, and the National Laboratories areaggressively engaging U.S. industry and other government agencies including NSF, NASA,NOAA, NIH, and DoD regarding project scope and requirements, technical approaches andprogress, technology outreach and adoption, and strategic directions.
In addition to the supercomputers themselves, the National Laboratories employ some of theworld’s leading experts in computer science and advanced mathematics, which is crucial toleveraging each new generation of bigger and better computing capabilities through advanced
software development. The Office of Science laboratories that are home to its most powerfulcomputers—including Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Berkeley Lab—collaborate extensively with
university and industry partners, as well as other National Laboratories, to license laboratorydeveloped software and hardware for applications such as advanced manufacturing,7

biomanufacturing, buildings, chemical separation, grid modernization, quantum information
science, and storage.
Summit, located at Oak Ridge, is the fastest computer in the United States. Here are a few
examples of Summit’s impact in a variety of fields.
•

General Electric is using Summit to simulate combustion in gas-powered turbines. The use ofcomputer simulations gives researchers more designs to evaluate, which means they canmake leaps in turbine efficiency that translate to millions of dollars in saved fuel and millions
of tons of reduced carbon pollution.

•

A team from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is using Summit to study copper-based
superconductors to understand the interactions between the particles in these materials.
Superconductors have zero electrical resistance when they reach sufficiently low
temperatures and might be useful for technologies such as magnets for MRIs, fusion devices,and particle accelerators.

•

General Motors recently received the first commercial license for the use of MENNDL, apowerful artificial intelligence system developed by Oak Ridge to recognize patterns indatasets of text, images, or sounds, to accelerate advanced driver assistance systems
technology and design. Last year, in a project with the Stony Brook Cancer Center at Stony
Brook University in New York, MENNDL was used on Summit to create neural networks
that can detect cancer markers in biopsy images much faster than doctors.

Biology: In biotechnology, genomics, and synthetic biology, the National Laboratories possess
one of the world’s greatest collections of research facilities, international scientific leadership,
and other assets focused on non-human biology for energy, environmental sustainability, andbiomanufacturing. The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory are among the world’s most sophisticated research facilities focused on biology bydesign to address climate change, clean energy, and environmental sustainability. These facilities
are utilized annually by thousands of users and tens of thousands of researchers access and use
the data they generate.
Coal and Carbon Capture: The challenge of capturing carbon from the atmosphere illustrates
the benefits of the Office of Science approach. Carbon capture requires diverse expertise, fromgeochemistry to chemical separations, plus engineers who can make materials and devices thatwork economically and effectively. At the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences—an Officeof Science User Facility at Oak Ridge—staff researched how to convert carbon dioxide toethanol using common elements. They discovered an electrocatalyst that converts CO2 efficiently
to ethanol using graphene—a form of carbon, an abundant element—along with small amountsof copper. Our experts worked with multiple Energy Department programs as well as industry,
and the catalyst has been licensed by multiple U.S.-based companies including New Orleansbased ReactWell LLC.

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Oak Ridge has a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with Wyomingbased Ramaco Carbon through 2025 to explore innovations for the conversion of coal to highvalue advanced carbon products and materials. The Innovation Crossroads program supported by
DOE and TVA is also supporting innovation in this space. One of the first graduates of the twoyear fellowship program is SkyNano Technologies, a company that has developed a process toturn carbon dioxide into carbon-based materials for use in industries from technology totransportation.
Researchers also are utilizing Office of Science User Facilities at Oak Ridge to improve theperformance of existing power plants. For instance, researchers from West Virginia University
are using neutron scattering at ORNL to study novel materials called high-entropy oxides. Theirgoal is to collect insights into how the atoms in the HEOs bind together and whether thematerials can be used to develop useful applications to improve power plant operations and are
testing sensors that monitor efficiency at the Longview Power Plant in Maidsville, W.Va.
Critical materials: The Office of Science and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy support the U.S. manufacturing sector with research that helps to secure supply chains ofcritical minerals. Research to diversify the supply of rare earth elements examines thecomplexity of source materials available within the U.S. and is also examining urban waste as apossible source of rare earths. These sources often contain dilute sources of critical material, andresearchers are exploring approaches for extracting them. The research includes designing
molecules that can control separation selectivity for rare earth elements and then allow the rareearths to be released from the molecules in response to external stimuli on demand.
Researchers are also looking at more scalable methods for making functionally equivalentalternatives to critical materials from plentiful feedstocks, and to move them to market faster andmore cheaply. This research relies on state-of-the-art characterization tools and computational
resources available from Office of Science User Facilities including Oak Ridge’s Center for
Nanophase Materials Sciences and Spallation Neutron Source, as well as the Oak Ridge
Leadership Computing Facility.
Finally, in research funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, we havedesigned, built, and tested systems capable of recycling rare earth materials from computer hard
drives and Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries, working with industry to commercialize thetechnology, most recently through a Texas company that licensed our process for recovering
cobalt and other metals from spent lithium-ion batteries, fewer than 5 percent of which arerecycled today in the U.S.
Isotopes: The Office of Science manages the National Isotope Development Center, serving as
an interface with the user community and coordinating isotope production across facilities at Oak
Ridge, Argonne, Brookhaven, Idaho, Los Alamos, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.
At our National Laboratories, we produce many isotopes that are not available from any othersource.
Without this important work within the Office of Science, we would not have many of the cancer
treatments or medical diagnostics techniques we have today, and NASA would not be able to9explore Mars. About a third of all patients admitted to hospitals require diagnosis or treatmentusing radioisotopes.
Isotopes are used for hundreds of applications beyond healthcare and space exploration, too,
including smoke detectors, neutron detectors for homeland security applications, explosives
detection, and many others.
Production of these isotopes requires a unique set of facilities and infrastructure, plus a robust
research and development program for new or improved production methods. It is worth notingthat many of the isotopes we make at Oak Ridge—isotopes that cannot be produced anywhere
else—are produced in a reactor built in the 1960s and then processed in nuclear facilities of thesame vintage. This is certainly a good example of where Laboratory infrastructure funding could
be well spent.
Natural Disaster Protection and Response: National Laboratories offer a suite of capabilities
to address the requirements of detection, tracking, forecasting, and assessing wildfire and therecovery of lands impacted by wildfires. A range of predictive models, data resources, remotesensing and tracking applications, measurements, and long-term monitoring, all aided by worldclass computational resources can be brought to bear on this critical area, mitigating large-scaleinterruptions of energy infrastructure that impact the lives and economic prosperity ofcommunities throughout the U.S.
Fusion Energy: Nuclear fusion has the potential to deliver carbon-free, inherently safe,
abundant energy to the world for thousands of years, supporting equitable global access toreliable electricity.
ORNL is making crucial contributions to resolving key challenges, including leading the U.S.
ITER project for the Office of Science and building the world-leading Material Plasma Exposure
Experiment (MPEX), working on fundamental science in burning plasma physics and fusionmaterials, and leading technology development for the fusion fuel cycle. Fundamental science inburning plasma physics is preparing us for valuable research at the ITER facility, and the ITER
project is also providing opportunities for hundreds of U.S. universities and companies tocontribute and to gain valuable insight as the project progresses.
For a path to fusion energy—not just fusion science— it is essential to master both the scienceand the technology. Materials and fuel cycle are less developed and require intensified efforts toaccelerate the path to fusion energy. The extreme environment of a fusion device requires
materials that can perform reliably to minimize downtime. Facilities such as a Fusion Prototypic
Neutron Source are needed to advance fusion materials and prepare the U.S. for a fusion pilot
plant.
About $2 billion of private funding has been invested in novel fusion concepts, focused primarilyon confinement (physics). Federal investment is vital because a successful fusion industry
depends on Oak Ridge and other lab contributions for science and technology expertise. The
Office of Science’s INFUSE program (Innovation Network for Fusion Energy) managed by Oak
Ridge and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, is an excellent example of industry leveraging
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DOE science lab fusion expertise. So far, 16 private companies are engaged in 40 projects with
DOE science labs.
Place-Based Innovation and Regional Technology Hubs
The growing realization that a vibrant innovation ecosystem is the key to sustained economic
vitality is bringing renewed attention to the role of the National Laboratories in catalyzing
innovation. National Laboratories can be key players in regional ecosystems made up of“networks of technology firms, capital markets, and research universities” from which, according
to a recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations, most innovation emerges. National
Laboratories in Northern California and the Chicago area contribute to the strength of those“superstar metro areas” for innovation, as defined by the Brookings Institution.
Most of America’s innovation jobs are concentrated in just 41 of the nation’s more than 3,000
counties. To overcome what it calls “the entrenched geography of America’s innovationindustries,” Brookings proposes a major package of federal investment for innovation-sector
scale-up in metropolitan areas that have been left behind in the agglomeration of the innovationindustry. If we overlay the locations of the DOE National Laboratories with Jump-Starting
America’s 100-city list, promising locations for expanded innovation emerge. Like Brookings,
Jump-Starting America calls for strategic federal investments in science and both identify the
Oak Ridge Corridor—in the Southern Appalachians near Knoxville, Tennessee—as a candidate
for transformative growth.
The Oak Ridge Corridor is already an established Center of Excellence, as a world leader incomputing, neutrons, materials research, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing. It also
leverages key partnerships between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University ofTennessee, Vanderbilt University, and other regional and national universities including HBCUs.
We are proud, in fact, to be recognized recently as one of the Top 20 supporters of HBCU
engineering schools, and we are committed to developing the workforce of the future. Oak Ridge
provides educational programs for thousands of K-12 students and teachers each year, and hosts
550 undergraduate interns, 300 graduate students, and 400 postdoctoral researchers annually.
Each summer, our scientists work with middle and high school students and teachers in theAppalachian Regional Commission’s Oak Ridge Summer STEM Program, which offers aresidential, hands-on learning experience. Many participants come from economically distressedcounties and will be the first generation in their families to attend college. The ARC summer
program is often their first exposure to applied science and in-depth STEM education.
Office of Science investments in world-leading User Facilities, programs, people andcollaborators from academia and industry provide a foundation for creating a
new innovation community for wealth-creating, high-tech jobs in the Oak Ridge Corridor, aregion well outside the 41 counties where most of those job are now. In fact, the labor shed for
the Oak Ridge Corridor includes a dozen counties designated as distressed or at-risk by theAppalachian Regional Commission. The Corridor also runs through Tennessee’s coal mining
region and near two of the coal-fired power plants soon to be shut down by the Tennessee Valley

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Authority. Those workers will benefit from retraining for innovation jobs, and we are alreadyworking with community colleges to develop training and certificate programs.
The Federal Government spends several billion dollars annually in Oak Ridge, when the
Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the Department of Energy’s cleanup
mission are all taken into account. An Innovation Center in East Tennessee can leverage thoseinvestments and realize DOE’s vision of its Oak Ridge site as a clean, modernized, andreindustrialized city that advances the Department’s vital missions in ensuring America’s
security and prosperity.
Conclusion
In closing, let me again thank you for your support and recognition of the value the Office of
Science holds for our nation’s innovation and scientific leadership, as well as some of thecontributions made through its programs.
As Congress continues to make important decisions about infrastructure investments, I urge theMembers of this Committee to prioritize the funding of National Laboratory infrastructure. The
needs span the spectrum from deferred maintenance of facilities and basic infrastructure that
range from 70 years old to state-of-the-art scientific facilities that will attract the brightest
scientists of our time and help win the global race for talent. Facilities like the Electron Ion
Collider and the Second Target Station are key examples of infrastructure investments that willkeep the United States at the forefront of scientific discovery and innovation for decades—if wechoose to make those investments.
As you consider investments in our nation’s energy infrastructure more broadly, the National
Laboratories also offer key capabilities both to maximize the effects of new technology in
mitigating climate change but in redesigning potentially vulnerable critical infrastructure withphysical and cyber security in mind.
The Office of Science has given Oak Ridge and its other National Laboratories the significant
responsibility of stewarding world-leading research capabilities in the national interest, forming
partnerships with the potential to transform industries, and collaborating across the federal
government to strengthen national security and keep the United States at the forefront of scienceand technology.
We are grateful to be entrusted with this mission and look forward to pursuing it together.

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