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PROVIDING THE TOOLS FOR SCIENTIFIC 

DISCOVERY AND BASIC ENERGY RESEARCH: 

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SCIENCE MISSION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 30, 2013 

Serial No. 113–52 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

VACANCY 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

HON. CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming, Chair 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

October 30, 2013 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Cynthia Lummis, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Eric Swalwell, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 

House of Representatives .................................................................................... 11 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 12 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 13 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Pat Dehmer, Deputy Director for Science Programs, Office of Science, 

Department of Energy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 20 

Dr. Horst Simon, Deputy Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 30 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 32 

Dr. John Hemminger, Chairman, Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, Department of Energy .....................................................................

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 47 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 49 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 62 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Pat Dehmer, Deputy Director for Science Programs, Office of Science, 

Department of Energy ......................................................................................... 78 

Dr. Horst Simon, Deputy Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab ................ 98 

Dr. John Hemminger, Chairman, Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, 

Department of Energy ......................................................................................... 101 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Supporting material submitted for the record by Dr. Horst Simon, Deputy 

Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab ....................................................... 154 

(1) 

PROVIDING THE TOOLS FOR SCIENTIFIC 

DISCOVERY 

AND BASIC ENERGY RESEARCH: 

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SCIENCE 

MISSION 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:34 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Cynthia Lummis 

[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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6 
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9 
10 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Good morning. We are all scampering in 

to gather for this hearing that we are delighted to be holding, and 

we want to welcome everyone to the hearing. It is titled ‘‘Providing 

the Tools for Scientific Discovery and Basic Energy Research: The 

Department of Energy’s Science Mission.’’ In front of you are packets containing the written testimony, biographies and Truth in Testimony disclosures for today’s witness panel. 

Again, we are delighted that you are here, and I am going to now 

recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

The Department of Energy is the lead Federal agency supporting 

fundamental scientific research for energy and the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. It funds basic research at universities, owns world-class national laboratories, and 

makes available unique scientific user facilities to conduct 

groundbreaking research. These fundamental science and basic research activities provide the underpinnings of America’s long-term 

economic competitiveness and result in scientific discoveries which 

change the way we look at the natural world. This scientific research has led to 113 Nobel Prize winners affiliated with the DOE 

or its predecessor agencies. We must continue to pursue this standard of international excellence. A vibrant scientific ecosystem fosters innovation and discovery. The Department should continue to 

work with its academic national lab and industry stakeholders to 

achieve this goal. This includes providing the tools to the national 

laboratories to reduce bureaucratic paperwork and regulations, as 

we heard in an Energy Subcommittee hearing in July. These efforts will enable taxpayers’ funding to be used more efficiently. 

Given the current budgetary outlook of skyrocket entitlement 

spending crowding out discretionary funding, it is imperative to 

maximize the value of limited tax dollars. DOE must prioritize its 

activities and assure each dollar is allocated effectively. I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses on how this can best be 

achieved. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Lummis follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN CYNTHIA LUMMIS

Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing titled Providing the Tools for Scientific Discovery and Basic Energy Research: The Department of Energy Science 

Mission. 

The Department of Energy (DOE) is the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy and the largest supporter of basic research in 

the physical sciences. It funds basic research at universities, owns world-class National Laboratories, and makes available unique National Scientific User Facilities 

to conduct groundbreaking research. 

These fundamental science and basic research activities provide the 

underpinnings of America’s long-term economic competitiveness and result in scientific discoveries which change the way we look at the natural world. This scientific research has led to 113 Nobel Prize winners affiliated with DOE or its predecessor agencies. We must continue to pursue this standard of international excellence 

A vibrant scientific ecosystem fosters innovation and discovery. The Department 

should continue to work with its academic, National Lab and industry stakeholders 

to achieve this goal. This includes providing the tools to the National Laboratories 

to reduce bureaucratic paperwork and regulation, as we heard in an Energy Subcommittee hearing in July. These efforts will enable taxpayer funding to be used 

more efficiently. 

Given the current budgetary outlook of skyrocketing entitlement spending crowding out discretionary funding, it is imperative to maximize the value of limited tax 
11 

dollars. DOE must prioritize its activities and assure each dollar is allocated effectively. I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses on how this can best be 

achieved. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I will yield to you later, 

and I am delighted to recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. 

Swalwell, for his opening statement. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Chairman Lummis. Thank you for 

holding this hearing. I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panel of witnesses. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the Nation’s 

largest supporter of research in the physical sciences, so it is impossible to overstate its important role that it will play in establishing our energy future and to our innovation enterprise. Our 

witnesses today will be able to speak in much greater detail about 

the Office, but I want to start by highlighting just a few of the 

amazing activities that this program supports. 

The Basic Energy Sciences program builds and operates a number of major user facilities, including several massive light sources 

and neutron sources that allow us to examine new materials and 

to watch fundamental chemical and biological processes almost in 

real time. About 14,000 researchers across the country use these 

facilities each year. These users include not only Department of 

Energy scientists, but university scientists as well as their students, as well as researchers from approximately 160 companies including names like Boeing, Dow, Ford, General Electric, IBM, 

Merck, and Pfizer. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that 

this program supports the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia 

National Laboratory, which has been working closely with U.S. engine manufacturers for more than 30 years to improve efficiency 

and reduce harmful emissions from internal combustion engines. 

As we touched on in a hearing earlier this year, the Office’s Advanced Computing Research program is supporting facilities and 

developing software tools that address our scientific community’s 

major supercomputing needs today, and it is providing the scaffolding necessary to build the next generation of high-end computing systems for tomorrow. This capacity will enable researchers 

across the scientific arena, from materials science to climate 

change to astrophysics, to acquire unparalleled accuracy in their 

simulations and achieve research breakthroughs more rapidly than 

ever before. 

This is why I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the bipartisan American Super Computing Leadership Act recently introduced by my colleague on the Science Committee, Mr. Hultgren, 

and I am encouraged to see its language incorporated in various 

versions of a reauthorization of the Office of Science. 

The Fusion Energy Sciences program supports research into 

plasma physics and the underlying engineering challenges of fusion 

energy systems. If successful, these efforts would provide us with 

a practically inexhaustible source of energy with almost zero environmental impact. And the Nuclear and High Energy Physics programs allow us to make discoveries from the atomic all of the way 

up to the cosmic level, engaging human beings’ innate curiosity 

about the origin and makeup of our universe and our place in it. 

I could spend my entire opening statement talking about the great 
12 

research supported by the Office of Science, but I will spare all of 

you that. 

It is important to note that many of these programs and activities would not be possible without the world-class system of national laboratories supported by the Office. These labs are rightfully described as the backbone, or crown jewels, of our country’s 

research and development infrastructure. They house facilities and 

provide capabilities that are impossible for academic or industrial 

research institutions to support on their own, and we know that 

they won’t. They employ some of the world’s brightest scientists 

and engineers, and they help train our country’s next generation of 

researchers. I may be a bit partial toward the labs because I happen to have two in my district, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore, 

and just about a three-iron away is the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, where Dr. Simon comes from, and we will talk about shortly, 

but without a doubt, the research and technologies that come out 

of these labs have produced an immense return on investment for 

American taxpayers. 

Unfortunately, the funding levels in the draft legislation that the 

majority is asking us to consider are simply inadequate to allow 

the Office of Science to continue to support the great research and 

facilities that it does. At a first glance, one might believe that the 

majority’s bill actually increases funding for the Office, but a closer 

look reveals that it is actually a cut to the funding because the rate 

of inflation for research is approximately three percent annually, 

but the bill only provides year-to-year increases of 1 to 1.7 percent. 

In effect, it is a cut to the Office’s budget. I hope that we can work 

around this, increase the budget and give the Office of Science the 

research and funding that it deserves. 

We hear a lot of talk about America being the greatest country 

in the world. I certainly believe that, and it certainly is, but if want 

to maintain our leadership and standing in technology and innovation and the jobs that will come with it, we can’t afford to continue 

to cut our research budgets, cede leadership on important areas 

like fusion to China and Russia without any consideration of the 

impacts such cuts will have on our Nation’s competitiveness. 

I look forward to discussing these and other issues with this distinguished panel here, and Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Swalwell follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER ERIC SWALWELL

Thank you Chairman Lummis for holding this hearing, and I also want to thank 

this excellent panel of witnesses for their testimony and for being here today. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the nation’s largest supporter of 

research in the physical sciences, so it is impossible to overstate its importance to 

our energy future and to our innovation enterprise. Our witnesses will be able to 

speak in much greater detail about the Office, but I want to start by highlighting 

just a few of the amazing activities and programs that it supports. 

The Basic Energy Sciences program builds and operates a number of major user 

facilities, including several massive light sources and neutron sources that allow us 

to examine new materials and to watch fundamental chemical and biological processes in almost real-time. About 14,000 researchers use these facilities each year. 

These users include not only DOE scientists, but university scientists and their students, as well as researchers from roughly 160 private companies including names 

like Boeing, Dow, Ford, General Electric, IBM, Merck, and Pfizer. I’d be remiss if 

I didn’t also mention that this program supports the Combustion Research Facility 
13 

at Sandia National Laboratories, which has been working closely with U.S. engine 

manufacturers for more than 30 years to improve efficiency and reduce harmful 

emissions from internal combustion engines. 

As we touched on in a hearing earlier this year, the Office’s advanced computing 

research program is supporting facilities and developing software tools that address 

our scientific community’s major supercomputing needs today, and it is providing 

the scaffolding necessary to build the next generation of high-end computing systems tomorrow. This capacity will enable researchers across the scientific arena, 

from materials science to climate change to astrophysics, to acquire unparalleled accuracy in their simulations and achieve research breakthroughs more rapidly than 

ever before. This is why I am pleased to be an original co-sponsor of the bipartisan 

American Super Computing Leadership Act recently introduced by Mr. Hultgren, 

and I am encouraged to see its language incorporated in various versions of a reauthorization of the Office of Science. 

The Fusion Energy Sciences program supports research into plasma physics and 

the underlying engineering challenges of fusion energy systems. If successful, these 

efforts would provide us with a practically inexhaustible source of energy with almost zero environmental impact. And the Nuclear and High Energy Physics programs allow us to make discoveries from the atomic all of the way up to the cosmic 

level, engaging human beings’ innate curiosity about the origin and makeup of the 

universe and our place in it. I could spend my entire opening statement talking 

about all of the great research supported by the Office of Science, but I will spare 

you all. 

It’s important to note that many of these programs and activities would not be 

possible without the world-class system of national labs supported by the Office of 

Science and other offices at DOE. These labs are rightfully described as the backbone, or the ‘‘crown jewels,’’ of our country’s R&D infrastructure. They house facilities and provide capabilities that are impossible for academic or industrial research 

institutions to support on their own. They employ some of the world’s brightest scientists and engineers. And they help train our country’s next generation of researchers. I may be a bit partial toward the labs because I happen to have one or two 

in my district (and a few more nearby, as Dr. Simon may rightfully point out) but, 

without a doubt, the research and technologies that come out of these labs have produced an immense return on investment to American taxpayers. 

Unfortunately, the funding levels in the draft legislation that the Majority is asking us to consider are simply inadequate to allow the Office of Science to continue 

to support the great research and facilities that it does. At first glance, one might 

think that the Majority’s bill actually increases funding for the Office, but a closer 

look reveals that they are actually cutting funding—the rate of inflation for research 

is about three percent, but the bill only provides year-to-year increases of 1 to 1.7 

percent, in effect cutting the Office’s budget. This is simply unacceptable and seems 

to be a pattern on this Committee. We hear a lot of talk about America being the 

greatest country in the world, and it certainly is, but if want to maintain our leadership in technology and innovation—and the jobs that come with it—we can’t afford 

to continue to cut our research budgets without any consideration of the impacts 

such cuts will have on our nation’s competitiveness. 

I look forward to discussing these and other issues with this distinguished panel 

here today, and with that I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the Ranking Member and now recognize the Chairman of the full Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I also want to 

thank you for your statement and the Ranking Member for his 

statement, which I thought was largely positive, and I appreciate 

that. We may have a slight difference on funding but I think overall we all are very encouraged by what the Office of Science at the 

DOE does. 

The Department of Energy at its core is a science agency. Its 

science mission is carried out through its basic research activities 

executed by the Office of Science. This research provides the foundation for innovation that drives long-term economic growth and 

serves as a valuable investment in America’s future. 
14 

The impact of DOE basic research activities is evident in our 

daily lives. Thousands of lives have been saved by DOE-sponsored 

research that developed MRIs and noninvasive cancer detection 

methods. Technological revolutions such as smaller, faster computer processors and breakthrough discoveries in energy storage 

can be traced to DOE basic research programs. 

Today’s hearing will focus on draft legislation titled ‘‘Enabling Innovation for Science, Technology, and Energy in America Act,’’ or 

EINSTEIN America Act. Yes, we like acronyms. The EINSTEIN 

America Act supports high-impact research that promotes economic 

innovation and revolutionary scientific research such as the development of X-ray light sources and high-performance computing programs. It recognizes the role of discovery science programs which 

explore the most fundamental questions about the nature of the 

universe. 

The discussion draft requires the Department of Energy to coordinate with other Federal agencies to streamline workplace regulations. This reduces burdensome red tape and provides the national labs flexibility to more effectively and efficiently execute the 

Department’s mission. This ensures that American taxpayer dollars 

are better utilized and enables labs to do more with less. The EINSTEIN America Act prioritizes science activities within the Department. It provides for an almost two percent increase above current 

spending levels. 

The discussion draft and today’s hearing serve as a starting point 

in the legislative process. I look forward to the witnesses’ testimony 

and to working with Committee Members to advance this bill. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman, and yield back the balance of my 

time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY

CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

The Department of Energy (DOE) at its core is a science agency. Its science mission is carried out through its basic research activities executed by the Office of 

Science. This research provides the foundation for innovation that drives long-term 

economic growth and serves as a valuable investment in America’s future. 

The impact of DOE basic research activities is evident in our daily lives. Thousands of lives have been saved by DOE-sponsored research that developed MRIs and 

non-invasive cancer detection methods. 

Technological revolutions, such as smaller, faster computer processors and breakthrough discoveries in energy storage, can be traced to DOE basic research programs. 

Today’s hearing will focus on draft legislation titled ‘‘Enabling Innovation for 

Science, Technology, and Energy in America Act’’ or EINSTEIN America Act. 

The EINSTEIN America Act supports high-impact research that promotes economic innovation and revolutionary scientific research, such as the development of 

x-ray light sources and high performance computing programs. 

It recognizes the role of discovery science programs, which explore the most fundamental questions about the nature of the universe. 

The discussion draft requires the Department of Energy to coordinate with other 

Federal Agencies to streamline workplace regulations. This reduces burdensome red 

tape and provides the National Labs flexibility to more effectively and efficiently 

execute the Department’s mission. 

This ensures that American taxpayer dollars are better utilized and enables Labs 

to do more with less. 

The EINSTEIN America Act prioritizes science activities within the Department. 

It provides for an almost two percent increase above current spending levels and 
15 

a one percent increase above the House-passed appropriations level for Fiscal Year 

2014. 

The discussion draft and today’s hearing serve as a starting point in the legislative process. I look forward to the witnesses’ testimony and to working with Committee Members to improve and advance this draft bill. 

Thank you and I yield back the remainder of my time. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and now the 

Chair recognizes the Ranking Member of the full Committee, the 

gentlelady from Texas, Mrs. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair, 

for holding this hearing today, and I would like to thank the witnesses as well for being here. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science is actually the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the country, and it operates more than 30 national scientific user facilities 

whose applications go well beyond energy innovation. Our Nation’s 

top researchers from industry, academia and other Federal agencies use these facilities to examine everything from new materials 

that will better meet our military’s needs, to new pharmaceuticals 

that will better treat disease, or even to examine the fundamental 

building blocks of the universe. I believe that this stewardship of 

unique scientific research, including the Nation’s major national 

user facilities, is an important role that I hope the Department will 

continue to make one of its highest priorities. 

I appreciate the majority’s efforts today to shine a spotlight on 

the good work carried out by the Office of Science and to authorize 

many of its important programs. However, I do have some significant concerns about the funding levels in the majority’s discussion 

draft, which essentially amount to harmful cuts because they do 

not even keep up with the rate of inflation for research. These levels for Fiscal Year 2014 are actually less than the Senate Appropriations Mark and the Administration’s request levels by almost 

nine percent. I am also concerned with the language that is clearly 

aimed at shifting support away from critical activities that the Office carries out to examine the science and impacts of climate 

change. 

That said, I believe there is common ground in our support for 

many of the Office’s programs. Yesterday I was pleased to circulate 

a discussion draft of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act 

of 2013, produced by my staff, which includes several similar provisions to the majority’s draft. It also includes authorization for the 

Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy and a number of 

important legislative changes that would accelerate technology 

transfer and improve the management of our national laboratories. 

With these two drafts in mind, I look forward to working with 

the majority and the science and technology community to seek out 

that common ground and to see if the concerns that I have raised 

can be reconciled. 

I thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
16 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you Chairman Lummis for holding this hearing today, and I would also 

like to thank the witnesses for being here. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science is actually the largest supporter of 

basic research in the physical sciences in the country, and it operates more than 

30 national scientific user facilities whose applications go well beyond energy innovation. Our nation’s top researchers from industry, academia, and other federal 

agencies use these facilities to examine everything from new materials that will better meet our military’s needs, to new pharmaceuticals that will better treat disease, 

to even examining the fundamental building blocks of the universe. I believe that 

this stewardship of unique scientific research, including the nation’s major national 

user facilities, is an important role that I hope the Department will continue to 

make one of its highest priorities. 

I appreciate the Majority’s efforts today to shine a spotlight on the good work carried out by the Office of Science, and to authorize many of its important programs. 

However, I have significant concerns about the funding levels in the Majority’s discussion draft, which essentially amount to harmful cuts because they do not even 

keep up with the rate of inflation for research. These levels for fiscal year 2014 are 

actually less than the Senate Appropriations Mark and the Administration’s request 

levels by almost 9%. I am also concerned with language that is clearly aimed at 

shifting support away from critical activities that the Office carries out to examine 

the science and impacts of climate change. 

That said, I believe there is common ground in our support for many of the Office’s programs. Yesterday I was pleased to circulate a discussion draft of the America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2013, produced by my staff, which includes several similar provisions to the Majority’s draft. It also includes authorization for the 

Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy and a number of important legislative changes that would accelerate technology transfer and improve the management of our national laboratories. 

With these two drafts in mind, I look forward to working with the Majority and 

the science and technology community to seek out that common ground, and to see 

if the concerns that I’ve raised can be reconciled. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentlelady. 

If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 

statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 

point. 

At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our first 

witness today is Dr. Patricia Dehmer, Deputy for Science Programs 

at the Office of Science, Department of Energy. Previously, she 

served as the Deputy Director for Science Programs at DOE. From 

1995 to 2007, she served as the Director of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences at DOE. She also started her career at DOE as a 

postdoctoral fellow at Argonne National Laboratory in 1972. Welcome, Dr. Dehmer. 

I would also now like to yield to the gentleman from California, 

the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Swalwell, to introduce our second witness. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Chairman Lummis. 

Today I am very pleased to introduce Dr. Horst Simon, Deputy 

Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Simon 

joined the laboratory in early 1996 as the Director of the National 

Energy Research Science Computing Center, and under his leadership, the Center enabled important discoveries for research in 

fields ranging from global climate modeling to astrophysics. Dr. 

Simon is an internationally recognized expert in computer science 

and applied mathematics, and he received the Gordon Bell Prize 

for Parallel Processing Research twice, first in 1988 and again in 

2009. He was also a member of the team that developed NASA’s 
17 

Advanced Supercomputing Parallel Benchmarks, a widely used 

standard for evaluating the performance of massively parallel computing systems. Dr. Simon holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, clearly a great university, given how close it is 

to the 15th Congressional District. 

I also should personally note that during my last visit to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, as I was nearing the end of the tour 

and had to go to another meeting, Dr. Simon had the unfortunate 

distinction of drawing the shortest straw, and his presentation was 

at the very end, and he was following me all the way out to the 

parking lot. He was so excited about the research and what he was 

working on. I am happy to continue listening to you, Dr. Simon, by 

inviting you here to testify today in Congress, and I really appreciate the work you do for the Bay Area and the international 

science community. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman. It appears your enthusiasm is infectious, and you have infected the Ranking Member 

of this Committee with your enthusiasm, and we appreciate that 

very much, Dr. Simon. 

Our third and final witness today is Dr. John Hemminger, Chairman of the Basic Energy Science Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy. Dr. Hemminger is the Vice Chancellor for Research and a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California 

Irvine. 

Now, as our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited 

to five minutes each after which the Members of the Committee 

will have five minutes each to ask questions. 

Okay. We are ready to begin. I now recognize Dr. Dehmer for five 

minutes to present her testimony. Welcome, Dr. Dehmer. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. PAT DEHMER, 

DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR SCIENCE PROGRAMS, 

OFFICE OF SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Dr. DEHMER. Thank you so much, Chairman Lummis, Ranking 

Member Swalwell and Members of the full Committee and the Subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to represent DOE’s Office 

of Science, often called the best-kept secret in town. 

For more than six decades, the Office of Science and its predecessors have been a U.S.and world leader in scientific discovery 

and innovation. We have led the world in high-performance computing. We helped drive the transition from using only those materials that are found in nature to the directed design of new materials at the atomic level. We have played an important role in initiating the modern biotechnology revolution through the creation of 

the Human Genome Project. We have pushed the frontiers of understanding the origins of matter and the universe, and we have 

built and operated dozens of large-scale scientific user facilities, 

which are major pillars of the U.S. scientific enterprise. Today they 

serve 29,000 users annually. From the earliest accelerators in the 

1930s to today’s supercomputers and the Linac Coherent Light 

Source, the world’s first hard X-ray laser, these facilities have redefined what is possible over and over again. 
18 

As the Federal agency funding the largest fraction of basic research in the physical sciences, we need to continue to provide the 

scientific research community with the tools and opportunities for 

the future. Here are half a dozen or so areas of priority for us. The 

first is high-performance computing. No other nation has been as 

successful in scientific computing as the United States. The United 

States has more supercomputers on the list of top 500 machines 

than any other nation and it has held this advantage since the list 

was first compiled in 1993, but our lead is precarious. To retain 

this lead, we are planning the next phase in high-performance computing, sometimes known as exascale computing, or the Exascale 

Initiative. This is not simply a machine capable of ten to the eighteenth operations per second. Rather, it is a journey to a new level 

of predictive design using computation. This will require advances 

in applied math, computer science, manipulation of big data, and 

the development of community codes so that we are ready on day 

one and that we are ready to be the first to benefit from these new 

machines. 

The second area is predictive design of materials. The energy 

systems of the future, whether they tap sunlight, store electricity 

or make fuel by splitting water, will involve materials that convert 

energy from one form to another. New materials will require exquisite control and functionality and they must be synthesized with 

precisely defined atomic arrangements. Of critical importance in 

doing this are our major scientific user facilities that probe materials at the atomic level, and these are the big light sources, the 

neutral scattering facilities and the electron beam scattering facilities. 

As a partner to predictive design of materials is predictive design 

of biological systems. Understanding how genomic information is 

translated into functional capabilities will enable design of microbes and plants for sustainable biofuels production, improved carbon storage and biological transformation of materials such as nutrients and contaminants in the environment. 

Next in line is scientific discovery and technology innovation 

through new funding constructs, often employing what we call 

team science. Examples are the Bioenergy Research Centers, now 

in their second five-year term, the Energy Frontier Research Centers and the Energy Innovation Hubs. 

Next is earth systems modeling. As a major supporter of the 

leading U.S. climate model, the Community Earth Systems Model, 

we recognize that today’s models must be significantly improved to 

modernize the code, make the code compatible with our advanced 

high-performance computers, incorporate realistic biogeochemical 

systems—that is atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice and subsurface— 

improve resolution and improve uncertainty quantification. 

Next is the fundamental nature of matter of energy. This is highenergy physics and nuclear physics. Understanding how the universe works by studying the properties and constituents of matter 

and energy, largely through the use of advanced accelerators and 

detectors, has been the responsibility of the Office of Science since 

the 1930s. Our scientific reach has now expanded through incorporation of underground science and cosmic science. In addition, we 
19 

have taken on two new roles: stewardship of accelerator R&D for 

the Nation, and the Isotope Production program. 

Finally, the last important priority for us is harnessing plasmas, 

the fourth state of matter. Controlling matter at very high temperatures and densities builds the scientific foundation needed to 

develop a fusion energy source. 

Thank you, Chairman and Members. I would be pleased to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Dehmer follows:] 
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Chairwoman LUMMIS. Thank you, Dr. Dehmer. My daughter, she 

is in her 20s. She is obsessed with lists, and I can’t wait to call her 

and tell her there is a list of the top 500 machines, and she will 

undoubtedly be checking it out before the end of the day. Thanks 

for your testimony. 

I now recognize Dr. Simon to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. HORST SIMON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, 

LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LAB 

Dr. SIMON. Chairwoman Lummis, Ranking Member Swalwell 

and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 

holding this important hearing and for inviting me to participate. 

I would like to deviate from my script very slightly and mention 

that I am a coauthor of the Top500 list, so if there are specific 

questions on ranking supercomputers, I would be very happy to answer these questions. 

As I was introduced, my name is Horst Simon. I am the Deputy 

Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a multi-program Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory managed 

by the University of California. Berkeley Lab has a very long and 

distinguished history of producing world-leading science, and today 

continues to be an international leader in many scientific fields and 

technology areas from the mysteries of the universe to delivering 

new energy solutions. 

Considering the challenges that our Nation is facing, there are 

few issues that are as critical to the Nation’s well-being as the vitality and productiveness of our innovation ecosystem. We do have 

a national ecosystem and it is comprised of universities, the national labs and, of course, industry, and it is the interplay of these 

three components that make us so competitive and make us very 

unique. In my daily work, I encounter almost every week visitors 

from around the world from Asia, from Europe, who come and visit 

the national labs and want to find out how does a national lab 

work, how do we interact with industry, how do we interact with 

universities because that system is very difficult to build and difficult to replicate. All three pieces of the system—universities, industry and national labs—are equally important and need to be 

supported. 

In my comments I would like to focus on what the national labs 

do. There are three important contributions that the national labs 

make. One, as has been mentioned by my colleague, Dr. Dehmer, 

we operate large-scale scientific facilities. These are facilities that 

are unique, very large, very difficult to build, difficult to maintain 

and operate, and that require consistent support over many years. 

These facilities are unique, not just in the Nation but worldwide. 

They provide a tool for our scientists to engage in really innovative 

new basic science and advance our state of knowledge. 

The second element is large-scale, multidisciplinary team science. 

Many of the challenges that we are facing today require the approaches that combine the input from very different disciplines. 

One example, which was mentioned, are the Bio Energy Research 

Centers. For example, the JBEI Research Center in Berkeley involves scientists that have backgrounds in agriculture, that have 

backgrounds in chemical engineering, that have backgrounds in bi-
31 

ology. They work on a very challenging problem that will take 

many years to resolve, that is, getting from cellulosic matter to 

biofuels. Bringing all of them together and solving of these large, 

challenging projects is a characteristic of the national labs. 

Third, I would like to point out that the national labs have a 

very important element of education to do. We are supporting, for 

example, in Berkeley close to 900 postdocs and graduate students. 

These are individuals who come through the national lab on an ongoing basis. We actually have each year on the order of several 

hundred students that spend some time at the lab. The labs have 

an important element for training and educating these students because they learn what the real problems are that the Nation is facing and how the tools of science can be brought to bear on solving 

these problems. Even if they don’t stay in the national lab system, 

they move on and become either academicians or work in industry 

and contribute to our innovative national ecosystem. So all three 

elements are equally important. 

I would like to conclude my testimony with a very personal comment. I came to the United States in the 1970s as a graduate student from Germany, and I received my Ph.D. in 1982 in Berkeley. 

I had not planned to really stay here but being a graduate student 

in one of the top universities, I found out very quickly that for a 

scientific career, the United States is the best place to be. I had 

spent some time in universities and industry and then came back 

to the national labs in 1995 and had a very, very productive career. 

I became a citizen a long time ago and very much enjoyed the support that you are providing to scientists like me that advanced my 

career and I have hopefully contributed significantly to the American innovation ecosystem. 

The unfortunate statement that I have to make at the end of my 

testimony is that if I were to meet myself today, a graduate student getting a Ph.D. in 2013, I am not sure if I could tell him or 

her the same thing that was true 30 years ago. It is not clear to 

me that this country has all the tools in place to provide an environment to be a productive environment for scientific inquiry. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Simon follows:] 
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Chairwoman LUMMIS. Dr. Simon, thank you for your statement. 

I now recognize Dr. Hemminger to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN HEMMINGER, CHAIRMAN, 

BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES ADVISORY COMMITTEE, 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Dr. HEMMINGER. Thank you, Chair Lummis, Ranking Member 

Swalwell and Members of the Energy Subcommittee. My name is 

John Hemminger. I am Professor of Chemistry and Vice Chancellor 

for Research at the University of California at Irvine. I also serve 

as Chair of BESAC, the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, of the Office of Science. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to provide my insight into the Office of 

Science and the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of DOE and to provide information on the activities of the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. 

In 2005, the U.S. National Academy sounded an alarm about the 

erosion of our global scientific and technological leadership with 

the publication of the report ‘‘Rising Above the Gathering Storm.’’ 

I think it is fair to say that a majority of somewhat complacent 

U.S. public and science infrastructure was stunned by this report. 

The response was swift and aggressive as this committee and the 

Congress passed the America COMPETES Act of 2007, which was 

then reauthorized in 2010. Last month, the chancellors and presidents of over 200 U.S. universities sent an open letter to Congress 

and the President expressing their serious concerns about what 

they referred to as the increasing U.S. innovation deficit. Their call 

to action was echoed in a similar letter from over a dozen associations representing the U.S. high-technology business community. 

The origin of the U.S. innovation deficit is clear. It is a direct result of our success. Since World War II, the U.S. Federal Government has invested heavily in all areas of fundamental science and 

technology. The result is the technologically sophisticated society 

we have today. Our success has not been lost on our global competition, especially countries in Asia and the European Union are 

investing heavily in fundamental science and technology. We have 

taught them by example. The growing innovation deficit is nowhere 

more critical than in energy science and technology where the 

United States is being challenged by increasingly sophisticated 

competitors. In my written testimony, I provided a concrete example, pointing out that the longstanding U.S. global leadership in 

large-science user facilities such as those managed by the Office of 

Basic Energy Sciences is being challenged as a result of major investments by countries in Europe. 

In my testimony, I described how the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee provides advice to the Office of Science and the 

Office of Basic Energy Sciences. I have provided the Committee 

with copies of reports that have resulted from three recent studies. 

Each report has specific findings and makes specific recommendations. I would like to take this opportunity to applaud the leadership of the Office of Science and the Office of Basic Energy Sciences 

for acting rapidly and effectively to implement the recommendations that resulted from these studies. 
48 

Since I was asked in my invitation letter to do so, I would like 

to conclude with a few remarks regarding the draft language for 

the EINSTEIN Act. I did provide a few observations in my written 

testimony. I would like to make two additional observations at this 

time. 

First, there are several examples in the draft legislation where 

specific areas of science are called out for attention, prioritizing 

them above other activities, and yet other important areas are not 

mentioned. One example is in the language associated with the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, which is given a 

broad charge ‘‘to carry out a program of research, development and 

demonstration in areas of biological system science and climate and 

environmental science.’’ Yet only biological systems and genomic 

science and low-does radiation research are addressed in detail in 

the draft legislation. Based on my own expertise, I would suggest 

that areas such as the development of a complete molecular-level 

understanding of the chemistry that underlies environmental pollution such as smog production and climate change should receive an 

equal emphasis from this office, given the importance to energy 

technology in the United States. 

I would also like to reiterate my concerns about the U.S. innovation deficit. I am concerned that the slight increase in funding associated with the draft legislative language I was provided will not 

be sufficient to allow the United States to recapture our leadership 

role in many areas of energy science. Let me assure you that I and 

my colleagues in the U.S. science community recognize the complex 

and serious budget issues facing our country. However, I am convinced that strategic investments in fundamental science research 

and education will be part of the solution, not of the problem. 

I want to thank you once again for your leadership and historical 

support of U.S. science and technology and also for the opportunity 

to be here today. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hemminger follows:] 
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Chairwoman LUMMIS. Thank you, panel, and now the Members 

will begin asking the questions, and the Chair yields herself five 

minutes to begin the questioning. 

And of course, I am going to start with something that is near 

and dear to my heart. As a graduate of the University of Wyoming 

and later someone who was involved in state government in Wyoming, I was on something called the EPSCoR Coordinating Committee, the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, which is a DOE program in part, Office of Science, and it 

provides limited funding to states that don’t receive substantial 

funding for their universities. Wyoming is an EPSCoR state, as I 

mentioned, so I was on the panel that got to vet and approve proposed EPSCoR projects and advance them to DOE and to the National Science Foundation for funding recommendations. 

DOE has proposed scaling back funding to the states, so my first 

question is for you, Dr. Dehmer. Many of the EPSCoR states are 

leading states in energy exploration and energy production, and 

that is certainly true of my State of Wyoming because of their limited funding and in spite of our massive contributions to the Nation’s energy security. What is your view on the role of the EPSCoR 

program and how can energy-producing states become more competitive in receiving funding through the Office of Science? 

Dr. DEHMER. Thank you very much for the question. As it turns 

out, I know quite a lot about EPSCoR. When I came to the Department of Energy in 1995 to lead BES, Basic Energy Sciences, the 

EPSCoR program had sort of accidentally had a lapse in funding. 

It was not funded out of my office. My division directors at the time 

were so committed to EPSCoR that we took over the EPSCoR program and we funded it out of our base program because of that 

commitment. So I have known the EPSCoR program for a very long 

time. It does outstanding work. We are very committed to that program. We work in partnership with all the other offices in the Office of Science and offices elsewhere to see if we can find partnering 

funds to increase the funding that goes to EPSCoR states. We try 

very innovative funding mechanisms to see if we can get individual 

investigators at EPSCoR states to become part of the program. We 

have worked very hard. The program has a checkered history of 

funding in the Congress, ups and downs, but we are committed to 

keeping that stable and to increase it at roughly the same rate that 

the other base programs in the Basic Energy Sciences increase. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. U.S. Senator Conrad Burns from Montana 

was very much instrumental in founding the EPSCoR program and 

was its main champion, so when he was no longer in the U.S. Senate, I think that it dropped as a priority with some Senators, which 

may have contributed to the fits and starts in terms of funding. So 

we miss him as a leader in the EPSCoR at least and Congress, and 

I appreciate your response to the question. 

Dr. Simon, what opportunities exist to have DOE and specifically 

its site offices reduce day-to-day micromanagement of lab operations? And what would the resulting impact be on the labs? 

Dr. SIMON. I think we are facing an overall trend of increasing 

oversight by DOE in many different aspects of our operations. I 

think in terms of interacting with our sponsors in headquarters 

with respect to science, the interactions are very good, but when it 
63 

comes to issues such as EH&S or other operational opportunities, 

I think the laboratories would be in a better position if they would 

have more autonomy, less oversight, and I can mention as an example what I put in my written testimony, the topic of DOE’s selfmanagement of Environment Health and Safety. We are just like 

any other large-scale industrial enterprise and so we could have 

been easily provided oversight by OSHA yet DOE has its own sets 

of rules and we have to comply to these rules. These rules are 

sometimes very restrictive and very burdensome. I have a longer 

description of that issue that I am willing to supplement in written 

testimony. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. A follow-up question then. If day-to-day 

oversight of lab operations is reduced, how can the national labs be 

held accountable for their stewardship of American taxpayer-supported investments, so you have flexibility, but we have accountability. 

Dr. SIMON. Yes. The national labs are operated by companies or 

universities that have a contract to operate the national lab. The 

contract has requirements, and these requirements can be enforced 

and oversight provided through annual reporting mechanisms, 

through reports back to the sponsors, and can be also reviewed on 

an ongoing basis. That is different from describing on a daily basis 

on how particular instances of our operation need to be carried out 

in terms of what level of inspections need to be done, what level 

of support needs to be put into a particular operation. So I think 

the outcome-oriented management is important as opposed to theoretical operational management. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Thank you, Dr. Simon. 

I gave myself a very generous fiv minutes, and will do the same 

for our Ranking Member. I recognize the gentleman from California. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Chairman Lummis. 

The research community often cites sustained growth and predictable funding as being among their top priorities. Not surprisingly, private industry cites predictability as one of its top priorities, and in necessity, if we really want the United States to continue to be a world leader in technology and innovation. 

Dr. Hemminger’s testimony specifically refers to the innovation 

deficit that the United States is experiencing, and as I discussed 

in my opening statement, while I appreciate the majority’s draft 

and its aims to improve the authorization of several important programs and activities carried out by the Office of Science, I have 

concerns about the draft’s funding profile. It supports budget levels 

that are below research inflation rates so they are effectively cuts, 

and nine percent below the bipartisan Senate Appropriations Mark 

for the Office of Science. I am also concerned that the funding profile in this draft runs for only two years rather than a much longer 

time. I would prefer something like five years to give more certainty to the laboratories and those partners in the Office of 

Science. 

Dr. Hemminger, do you think that a short-term two-year reauthorization that cuts the Office’s budget, provides the certainty and 

stability that the research community needs, and how does this 

help to increase the innovation deficit? 
64 

Dr. HEMMINGER. Thank you very much for that question. You 

know, I think that it is widely recognized that the predominant 

programs that are run by the Office of Science and particular the 

Office of Basic Energy Sciences are long—are addressing long-term 

questions and long-term issues. These are not science questions 

that one can expect answers to in very short periods of time, and 

I think that the only way that a short-term reauthorization works 

is with the expectation that the U.S. government isn’t going to go 

out of business and fall off a cliff and so on. So, I think it certainly 

would be advantageous to have a longer reauthorization bill, and 

I think this is particularly a problem or an issue with respect to 

the large science facilities. In my written testimony, I pointed out 

the issue of the international competition with respect to our global 

leadership for X-ray light sources and other facilities, and these are 

really major long-term projects that require stability in terms of 

funding and authorization. I would encourage the Committee to 

support that. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Dr. Hemminger. 

Dr. Simon, what are your thoughts on funding and length of 

funding, or length of authorization? 

Dr. SIMON. As I said in my opening statement, the national laboratories have long-term projects in research and have large-scale 

facilities that require a predictable, continued operation. It is very 

difficult in both instances to have a very highly variable budget 

that changes from year to year and that is not predictable. With 

respect to large facilities, the issue is that ongoing upgrades, plans 

may need to be postponed at an increased cost to the taxpayer later 

on. With respect to research projects, the high variability in funding makes it very difficult to plan personnel, and we are talking 

here about highly critical talent that if it is junior researchers, if 

postdocs see that there is uncertainty about funding, about the longevity of a project, they will go elsewhere and leave the national 

lab and weaken our innovation ecosystem. Thank you. 

Mr. SWALWELL. And Dr. Simon, could you talk a little bit about 

some of the other Federal agencies and private-sector users that 

you have at Lawrence Berkeley? We have heard that DOE labs are 

using—are having other agencies like NIH, NSF and NASA use 

their laboratories, and I know from touring LBL that there are private-sector partnerships as well. Can you talk about who those 

users are and how they are benefiting the technology transfer to 

the private market? 

Dr. SIMON. Thank you for the question. So let me first talk about 

other Federal agencies. The national user facilities that are operated by the Office of Science are available to all researchers, that 

is, university, national labs and industry researchers, so we have, 

for example, at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley a large 

number of researchers funded by NIH. These are biologists who are 

interested in determining the structures of large biomolecules of 

proteins. There are significant examples of major progress that has 

been obtained using the DOE facilities. For example, a research 

project that was just completed a couple months ago is looking at 

the structure of the influence of the flu virus. As you know, the viruses are mutating rapidly and there is still a quest for finding a 

common vaccine that would address all these flu viruses. So in 
65 

order to understand this, one has to look at the structure. There 

was a major project that was NIH funded that used the ALS to 

identify the structure of many of these viruses. 

With respect to NASA, I could mention an example of a collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Office of High Energy 

Physics, with NASA to collaborate on an astrophysics project called 

the Planck project, which is an exploration of the cosmic microwave 

of background radiation where both agencies have worked together, 

and the supercomputing center, NERSC, in Berkeley is actually the 

data repository for the Planck data. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you. And Dr. Simon, I have gone over my 

time. 

Dr. SIMON. I haven’t gotten to industry but I will be happy to—— 

Mr. SWALWELL. Yes, and hopefully we can get back to that. He 

is so passionate, he has so much to talk about, Chair. Thank you. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. And we are delighted for that, so we are 

going to have a generous clock today. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Hultgren, the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Chairman Lummis. 

Thank you all for being here, and I really do appreciate the work 

that you are doing. I hope you know from us, certainly from me, 

my passion for the work of the Office of Science and how key the 

work of the Office of Science is to determine our competitiveness 

on the world stage, and just absolutely convinced that we must 

right now be committed to maintaining our leadership in basic scientific research so that we can continue our leadership on the 

world stage as far as being an innovative nation going forward. I 

also have the great privilege of representing Fermilab, many of the 

brilliant scientists at Fermilab, Department of Energy employees 

at Fermilab, as well as many scientists over at Argonne. So I see 

firsthand the incredible impact that our laboratories have on the 

communities where they are located but much larger than that, the 

impact that they have on our university systems. I travel to all of 

my universities around Illinois and I am just amazed at the incredible opportunity that our students have working with our national 

laboratories to do truly groundbreaking research, and what a great 

opportunity. But then even beyond that, to see something like 

Fermilab where I think the numbers I saw was 39,000 K–12 graders are impacted every single year by Fermilab through programs, 

through work with teachers, by scientists going into the schools, incredible impact, and I am absolutely convinced that we must continue our commitment to basic scientific research at our national 

laboratories if we are going to be a great nation going forward with 

great opportunities for our kids and our grandkids to be able to 

learn and study here but also apply that knowledge for new discovery here in America, so thank you. 

A couple questions I had. Dr. Dehmer, I wanted to ask you your 

thoughts on the long-term future of the Department’s High Energy 

Physics program as it continues to regain its leadership role on the 

international level. There is no question that the United States was 

essential in experiments at CERN with programs like the LHC and 

Atlas. But I wondered what is next and what your thoughts are on 

the Long Base Neutrino Experiment and our unique underground 
66 

research space in South Dakota and Minnesota? What does America have to lose if we do not begin to act on this, and how can we 

leverage international funding to realize the potential discoveries 

that it has to bring? 

Dr. DEHMER. Well, thank you for the question. I spent 23 years 

at Argonne National Laboratory just down the road from Fermilab. 

Fermilab is one of our most important laboratories. As you well 

know, it is transitioning now from work at the energy frontier to 

work in the so-called intensity frontier. The accelerator and detector expertise at Fermilab is going to be critical to make the United 

States world leading in the intensity frontier. We need very intense 

beams. We need very high-precision detectors in order to do that. 

Fermilab will be at the forefront of doing that. Right now, as you 

probably well know, there was a very large meeting called the 

Snowmass Meeting in Minnesota that went on for a couple of 

weeks with about 500, 700 participants. That is going to be followed very closely now by an advisory committee study. Our expectation is that that study will be done in the spring, and that is 

going to inform not only the future of high-energy physics but we 

hope that it will also endorse a very vibrant future for Fermilab. 

As you well know, there is a new laboratory director at Fermilab, 

Nigel Lockyer, who is extremely talented, very aggressive, and so 

we are looking forward to a very good future for high-energy physics and the laboratory. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Good, and I hope there is a specific commitment 

with the Long Base Neutrino Experiment. I think we are in a 

unique position there on the forefront. If we let that slip away, 

there are certainly other nations that are willing to step in, like 

has happened in other areas where we haven’t followed through on 

opportunities that we have had, and we have seen focus come away 

from America and go over to Europe or other places. I really think 

it is so important that we don’t let this slip away. 

Dr. Dehmer and Dr. Simon, if I could get your thoughts? Earlier 

this year, DOE prepared a roadmap to develop exascale computing 

systems that I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss with 

Secretary Moniz on. I wondered if you could summarize the key 

findings and recommendations and also let the Committee know 

what ways DOE and non-DOE stakeholders can collaborate and 

utilize this capability? 

Dr. SIMON. Thank you for the question about exascale. Let me 

state first that I believe moving towards exascale is an incredibly 

important opportunity for the Department of Energy Office of 

Science but not just the Office of Science, other parts of DOE, 

NNSA and the U.S. research community in general to maintain 

leadership in high-performance computing. It is the path towards 

exascale, and not exascale in and of itself that is important. The 

reason why that is, is because I think there are fundamental 

changes that are currently happening in computer technology. You 

all are aware of technology shrinking, become more available at the 

iPhone level. These type of changes fundamentally alter the landscape of computing. What exascale really is about is envisioning 

how the computer landscape will look in 10 or 15 years. A good 

analogy is the early 1990s when there was a High Performance 

Computing Initiative, HPCC, that was a very well-coordinated, 
67 

well-funded initiative with national coordination which allowed all 

the agencies that have interest in computing to work together. I 

still look back to this time and say this should be a model for 

exascale. We should look at this as a challenge that is not just for 

the Department of Energy but for other agencies as well because 

whoever will control this technology in the near term will have a 

long-term economic advantage in the computing world. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I agree with you. 

My time is expired. I do have some more questions, if it would 

be all right if we can follow up in writing and get your response. 

Dr. Dehmer, we would love to hear your thoughts on the exascale 

computing work that we see as important but also some other 

things. With that, I yield back. Chairman, thank you so much for 

your generosity. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. And thank you for your expertise and enthusiasm for this topic. We are always impressed with your presence and your commitment to this subject, so Mr. Hultgren, my 

compliments. 

I will now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski. 

He and I came up on the elevator today and we were both concerned that we were enthusiastically rushing to this Committee, so 

the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. There are so many things to talk about 

here. Let me quickly get to it, and some things I might leave for 

follow-up questions for the record. 

I first want to say that I am glad to see that Congressman 

Hultgren’s bill, which I cosponsored, on high-performance computing has been incorporated into the discussion draft. I know it 

is vitally important that we keep up investments in high-performance computing that push the boundaries of what is possible and 

keep us on a path towards exascale computing as we were just 

talking about. I have seen firsthand how impressive these high-performance computing projects are by visiting the Mira supercomputer at Argonne, which is in my district, so it is great to have Argonne there. It is a great example of what we can do and what we 

should be doing more of. I may come back or maybe for the record 

ask Dr. Dehmer about the ASCR program, but I just wanted to 

move on to talk about tech transfer. 

It has been one of my top priorities since I have been in Congress, making it easier to get these research findings that then become new technologies, new inventions, get them out of the lab and 

into the market. Our national labs have been real leaders in this 

space as many of them have taken money that they receive from 

licensing agreements and put it towards funds that help accelerate 

the commercialization of new technologies. Still, I think more can 

and should be done, both at the labs and at DOE. 

I want to ask Dr. Dehmer, could you tell—can you talk about 

how the Office of Science approaches technology transfer and how 

you look to partner with the labs primarily funded by the Office of 

Science in these activities? 

Dr. DEHMER. Well, I will tell you briefly what the Office of 

Science is doing in our SBIR program. We have a new part of that 

program called TTO, Technology Transfer Opportunities, and it allows applicants to the SBIR program to use technologies or R&D 
68 

results from our laboratories in their work and the SBIR grants, 

and having looked just recently a couple of days ago at the latest 

funding opportunity announcement from the SBIR program, there 

are dozens of technology transfer opportunities noted in that for 

applicants. So we are aggressively working with our laboratories 

and also our universities but mostly the laboratories to take the results of their R&D and move them to small businesses. 

I also want to comment on what the Secretary is doing, Secretary 

Moniz. He is very interested in reducing barriers to the laboratories working with small business and industry, and his lab policy 

council, which was just established and had its first meeting last 

week, was devoted about 50 percent of the time to talking with lab 

directors and others about how we can reduce barriers and make 

it easier to do exactly what you are saying. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Very good. It is great to hear those things, and I 

think there is—I am sure there is more that we can do. One thing 

I am interested in is having DOE participate in the Innovation 

Corps program, and that is something I would like to continue to 

talk about. 

One other thing I wanted to get to right now is flexibility for the 

labs, and I think there is a need to have more flexibility. I am glad 

to see that the language in the bill expands the use of ACT agreements that can be entered into between labs and small businesses 

without an extra layer of review from the DOE. It is a good start, 

and I applaud DOE for working with the labs on the pilot program 

for these agreements. But I want to ask Dr. Dehmer if DOE is 

looking at other areas from tech transfer to facilities construction 

where perhaps the labs could be given a bit more leeway in what 

they are doing for the more minor decisions. I understand the need 

to follow DOE’s lead on larger strategic investments, it is always 

going to be there, but in terms of giving a little more flexibility to 

the labs. 

Dr. DEHMER. Yes. That is one of the things that has actually concerned me for a long time. Sometimes it is called atomization of 

budgets where budgets are put out in very small amounts. One of 

the things that we have done in the Office of Science is, we have 

created funding constructs that put money to the laboratories, in 

fact, even to the universities, in much larger amounts, and having 

a larger amount of funding to work with gives the labs that flexibility. And examples are the Nanoscale Science Research Centers, 

five of them, that we put in place about ten years ago now, the first 

one not quite ten years ago. That is a $25 million budget item, and 

the labs have flexibility to use that subject to annual or biannual 

or triannual review. The Energy Frontier Research Centers, the 

Bioenergy Research Centers and the Energy Innovation Hubs are 

all constructs that put funding to the performers, in many cases 

largely to the laboratories, in chunks of money that give the lab 

just this kind of flexibility and discretion in spending that you are 

talking about. I think that is something that I started almost ten 

years ago when I was in Basic Energy Sciences and I am pleased 

to see is continuing. I also don’t like to see too many constraints 

put on laboratories with too small amounts of money. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you very much. And just very briefly, I just 

want to bring everyone’s focus back to two things that Dr. Simon 
69 

said. One is the great cooperation we have in this country—universities, the national labs, industry. We need to not only appreciate 

that, we need to do what we can at the Federal level to help to continue and to help grow those, and I am glad Dr. Simon pointed 

those things out. 

And also the last thing that you had said in your testimony, Dr. 

Simon, about the future and what the future looks like for a young 

scientist today, and I think we all need to focus on that and do 

what we can to make sure that it continues—we continue to be the 

place that young scientists want to come to and to stay. Thank you. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman from Illinois, and 

the Chair will now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Takano. You know, our California Members make that long trek 

every week that our witnesses from California made today, and so 

they are grateful for your willingness to come this far. I now recognize Mr. Takano. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. I know our Chair travels from the 

great, wonderful State of Wyoming, a beautiful state. Thank you, 

Madam Chair. 

I am fortunate to represent UC Riverside, a top-notch research 

university, sister school of an empire that includes both Berkeley 

and Irvine. I want to get straight to the questions. 

Dr. Dehmer, in the majority’s draft authorization of the Office of 

Science, the Biological and Environmental Research Program is directed to ‘‘Prioritize fundamental research on biological systems, 

genomic science over the rest of the portfolio.’’ This is clearly a way 

to implicitly say take money from climate and environmental research. Do you support this language in the discussion draft? 

Dr. DEHMER. No, we do not support that. The climate and environmental sciences part of Biological and Environmental Research 

is extremely important, and we do not want to disadvantage that 

in the way that the language in the majority bill has been interpreted. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. Dr. Simon? 

Dr. SIMON. I concur with this answer, and I would just like to 

add that the environmental and climate research in the Office of 

Biologic Environmental Research is an important, integral part of 

the DOE mission. We shouldn’t really think of, say, climate as a 

standalone enterprise but think about how it interacts with other 

parts of the program. For example, climate science allows us to predict rainfall, precipitation in the West. That ties into the availability of water. The availability of water again has energy impacts 

in terms of how hydropower will be generated, how water will be 

used in energy technologies. So the Department of Energy is 

uniquely situated to explore not just climate itself but the interaction of climate with the ecosystem, and in a situation where this 

fundamental research can lead to important insights for our future. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. 

Dr. Hemminger, I believe you sort of stated your opinion in your 

opening statement. Would you care to add anything? 

Dr. HEMMINGER. No, I just want to say that as I said in my opening statement, I think it is a mistake to try to legislatively 

prioritize topics within the Office when important topics such as 
70 

the environmental sciences at sort of a really molecular level of understanding are so important. 

Mr. TAKANO. These sciences are so important to my district and 

southern California in general where there is actually seven or 

eight Congressional districts the size of several states that suffer 

from air quality issues, and our understanding of the way in which 

environmental—how the environment interacts with climate is very 

important to us. 

Dr. Simon, you mentioned the fact that you became an American 

citizen, that you saw this country as a place for you and a future 

for you in science, and you said you could no longer really say that 

to a graduate student today or—I am assuming that is what you 

were thinking. Can you explain a little bit more what you were 

talking about? 

Dr. SIMON. Thank you for the question. I think if I look at the 

steady state today and if I look at what the research facilities are, 

what the infrastructure is, what our educational institutions are, 

what our opportunities are to work with industry, how industry is 

working with us, America is still very clearly number one. However, what I am concerned about is the trend, and just to give a 

very recent example, if we have issues such as sequestration, which 

means that we have to look at future staffing, if we look at the partial shutdown where uncertainty goes through the system, what we 

are signaling to the next generation of scientists is, is that the future of science in the country is no longer as certain as it was. We 

are sending a very strong signal saying yes, there is a great infrastructure here, there is the opportunity here to work with top 

minds in the field but we cannot guarantee you that 30 years from 

now that situation will be the same because if we are on a path 

of continued reduction in funding, continued uncertainty about the 

longevity of some of the research projects, somebody who has to 

stake a 30-year career in front of them will have to very carefully 

look where he or she will go. 

Mr. TAKANO. So many of our top, bright graduate students might 

place a bet on other countries that seem to have a different trajectory. 

Dr. SIMON. Yes. I think we are at an inflection point where it 

could very well be that some of our brightest researchers will look 

elsewhere, in particular looking at Europe. From my personal experience, I would say particularly in my field, to put this in historical 

context, in 1980 there was no doubt about the differential between 

what was happening in America and what was happening in Europe. Today I would say Europe has pulled up and is in many areas 

even and in some areas even ahead of us. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you so much for your testimony. I yield 

back. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman, and we will have 

an opportunity for those of us who are here to ask a second round 

of questions, and we are going to limit the time, so the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, who has a bill on 

the Floor, and we are delighted you were able to stay this long. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thanks, Chairman. 
71 

Dr. Dehmer, I will follow up with the question I had asked Dr. 

Simon just in regards to exascale computing, if there is any shortly 

key findings, recommendations or if there are ways that DOE and 

non-DOE stakeholders can collaborate to utilize this capability? 

Dr. DEHMER. Yes. Let me just say what is happening inside 

DOE. Secretary Moniz—you said you spoke with him—is very 

strongly supportive of this, and he is having NNSA and the Office 

of Science work collaboratively and collaboratively with the community to make sure that the exascale program, and as Dr. Simon 

said, it is not an endpoint, it is a journey, a ten-year journey to a 

computer this large, is successful. He has also asked his advisory 

board, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, to listen to the 

presentations from the Department and from others and to provide 

him with advice on the path forward. This is one of the very highest priorities in the Department of Energy right now. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Okay. Thank you. 

Dr. Dehmer, different subject. In your testimony, you stated that 

HEP is the steward of accelerator R&D technology for DOE. I wonder if you can just discuss the interagency collaboration on this 

technology, where it lies in the draft legislation and the benefits accelerator research has for America. 

Dr. DEHMER. The Office of High Energy Physics has been very 

aggressive in the last couple of years reaching out to others—NIH, 

the medical community, all communities that use accelerators—to 

find out how we can help them. As you know, the State of Illinois 

built IARC at Fermilab, and that is another way that we are going 

to reach out to non-traditional users of accelerators to see how we 

in the High Energy Physics program through the laboratories can 

help others who need accelerator technology but don’t have the expertise to do it themselves. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you. Last question I will ask, Dr. Dehmer. 

There is a couple different parts to it. The United States is currently a partner in ITER, a more than $20 billion international 

project to demonstrate the concept of fusion energy. Unfortunately, 

this project has been plagued by delays, increased cost estimates 

and poor project management, and I understand more bad news 

may be on the way in terms of our European partners’ ability to 

meet their project obligations. Dr. Dehmer, do you have full confidence in the construction and financing of ITER within a reasonable time frame and cost structure? 

Dr. DEHMER. Well, let me answer that in a slightly different way. 

As you know, in the 2014 budget which is now before Congress, the 

Department of Energy capped its contribution to ITER at $225 million a year with a $2.4 billion cap to get it to first plasma. We are 

awaiting the results of a couple of reviews now. One of them is an 

international review of the management of the project at the International Organization, the IO, and the other is an Office of Project 

Assessment, sometimes called a Lehman review, and based on the 

results of those two reviews, we will take another look at how we 

are approaching ITER. 

Mr. HULTGREN. You kind of touched on this, but I wonder if you 

could maybe go a little bit further and just describe any upcoming 

project milestones and how the Department will evaluate its future 

participation in contributing to ITER? 
72 

Dr. DEHMER. Well, we are responsible—the U.S. part of ITER, 

the U.S. project office, USIPO, is responsible for certain 

deliverables, and we review progress toward meeting those 

deliverables on a regular basis through the Office of Project Assessment, and that tells us about how we are doing. The so-called management assessment, which won’t be released until late November, 

will tell us a little bit about how the ITER project office in France 

is doing, and again, based on the results of those two reviews, we 

will take a look at what our position is going to be. 

Mr. HULTGREN. What were the dates on that again? 

Dr. DEHMER. Late November is the council meeting, and the 

management assessment will be briefed to the ITER council at that 

point. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Okay. I think for us, and you understand this, 

our responsibility is certainly to see the Department do well and 

be in the forefront of some important work but also making sure 

that we are being responsible for the taxpayer dollars, so just kind 

of in conclusion, I just ask, will you assure the Committee that you 

will continue to be vigilant in protecting taxpayer dollars from 

waste and cost overruns specifically associated with ITER to the 

point of considering U.S. withdrawal from the project if necessary? 

Dr. DEHMER. Yes, we will do that. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you. Again, thank you all for being here, 

and thank you, Chairman, for allowing me to jump ahead a little 

bit in the line here. Thank you. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Swalwell. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Chairman Lummis. 

Dr. Simon, could you complete your remarks from earlier about 

private industry partners that your laboratory has been working 

with and how you see their work transferring out to the private 

sector and creating jobs, helping the economy, making us more energy independent? 

Dr. SIMON. Thank you for the question. I would like to follow up 

on this. Yes, there are of course several individual collaborations of 

our laboratory with private industry. There are the standard ways 

of transferring technology through licensing and intellectual property rights agreements. I could mention a couple of exciting examples. Dr. Dehmer mentioned previously the Nanoscience Centers. 

We now have ten years later the first examples of technology coming out of Nanoscience Centers that is actually used in industry in 

terms of small company startups but using very innovative ideas 

to build new products. I can mention a small company that has just 

started, Heliotrope, that is using a nanocoating on windows that 

makes windows electrochromic so it can switch from on and off. In 

winter you make windows bright so sun can go in and heat stays 

inside and in the summer you switch in reverse, and this is by the 

flip of a switch. Of course, this is technology that is proven in the 

lab. It will take years to make it a real product. But this is the 

path that we have from basic research at the lab to an actual innovation that could change maybe in ten years or so how we build 

houses. 

More fundamentally, I think I would mention two other things. 

One project, one area is so-called work for others. The labs engage 
73 

in projects that are funded by industry. It is a very important element because it allows industry to work directly with us, sponsor 

work at the lab and benefit from the investment that the Department of Energy has made. It would be very desirable if these work 

for others projects could be made a bit easier to implement and 

maybe the labs would have authority to in particular sponsor small 

work for otherd projects quickly without DOE oversight. That is 

important because often we work with small companies that cannot 

wait for eight or nine months to get approval. Those companies 

need commitments from VCs or have other constraints. So speed is 

of the essence. 

A third area that I would like to mention is the use of national 

user facilities. These are open to industry. Industry has worked 

with the national user facilities. As an example, the Advanced 

Light Source has a very long-term agreement with Sematech, exploring extreme ultraviolet technology for future generations of 

chips. Large companies and consortia like Sematech know how to 

do this. I think what we need to do is find a way of getting small 

and medium sized enterprises access, better access to our facilities, 

again, reducing paperwork, making it easy and efficient and possibly even providing support for small and medium sized companies 

to access the facilities. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Great. Thank you, Dr. Simon, and I yield back. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman, and I have kind of 

a follow-up question about the EINSTEIN America draft bill as it 

relates to signature authority on agreements for non-federal entities. The discussion draft delegates signature authority on agreements under 500,000. Is there a threshold which may provide for 

added flexibility to the national labs while preserving the Department’s oversight responsibilities for larger projects? And I open this 

question to any of our panelists. 

Dr. DEHMER. Yes, we noted that provision, and that is something 

that actually I think we may have to talk with general counsel 

about because that adds to the contract of the laboratory, and I am 

not sure what role DOE can relinquish in doing something like 

that. I understand the sense of this, that it is to give the labs more 

flexibility and more freedom to work quickly. You know, as I mentioned earlier, one of my goals is to give the labs more flexibility 

in research dollars by putting out dollars in larger amounts and 

letting the M&O contractor manage that. I think the same philosophy holds for work for others in technology transfer, and I think 

there are mechanisms that the Secretary would like to put in place 

to do that. I am not sure that this is one of them but we will certainly explore it. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Dr. Simon, is 500,000 a good threshold 

from your perspective? 

Dr. SIMON. It is certainly a good threshold but I think a million 

would be better. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Okay. And I hear you. Thank you for your 

candor. 

Dr. Hemminger, any thoughts on this? 

Dr. HEMMINGER. Yeah, I just agree with Dr. Simon. You know, 

coming from the University of California, which is part of the con-
74 

tract management for several of the labs, I think this would be an 

important step if it is legal, and—— 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Well, we make it legal. 

Dr. HEMMINGER. Yeah. Very good. You know, I think that moving in this direction would be positive. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Let me ask just as my final question, is 

there anything that you would like to share with us that we have 

not asked? So I leave the option to say something that is a burning 

answer that you wish you could leave us today with. 

Dr. DEHMER. Well, I would like to add something to the discussion that we have had already today on the funding levels in the 

EINSTEIN Act. One of the things that I noted over the weekend 

when I was poring over numbers was that the authorization in the 

2010 COMPETES Act for Fiscal Year 2013 was a hair over $6 billion for the Office of Science, and when we see something like that, 

we tend to plan toward something of that order of magnitude. The 

actual appropriation was $4.6 billion, so we are significantly below 

what the authorization was, and it is very hard to plan. When I 

was the director of Basic Energy Sciences for all those years, for 

12 years, I carried with me a single sheet of paper and that single 

sheet of paper was a ten-year projection for what the Basic Energy 

Sciences program would do in construction and in research. It was 

a single Excel spreadsheet. And those years, we didn’t have a huge 

amount of funding but we knew what was coming or we could plan 

what was coming. And today there would be no way that you could 

carry a spreadsheet like that because things change so much. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Dr. Simon? 

Dr. SIMON. Thank you for the opportunity to comment freely. I 

of course support very much what Dr. Dehmer said. I would like 

to draw your attention to another topic that is very, very important 

for the future. Many of our national laboratories were created and 

formed in the time after the second World War, and are really still 

in the legacy of the Atomic Age as far as their physical infrastructure is concerned. We have, for example, in Berkeley Lab, the average age of buildings is more than 50 years. We are an 80-year-old 

lab, so you can really see from this that there was a big building 

boom in the 1950s and 1960s and we are still in buildings that are 

by now outdated and in many cases no longer safe. There is a program in the Office of Science called the Science Lab Infrastructure, 

which allows for gradual renovation of buildings, upgrades and also 

doing important things in California such as earthquake safety. We 

are very supportive of this program because it is the best way of 

accomplishing a gradual upgrade of very old and aging facilities. 

In addition to that, of course we understand that we are in a 

time of very constrained budgets. It would be very helpful if we 

could find innovative and quick ways to use other sources of funding. For example, the laboratories would be very interested to use 

third-party financing for buildings and we would like to work with 

the Office of Science and DOE to find quick ways to accomplish 

this within the existing framework. So, infrastructure is as important as people and scientific facilities. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. Dr. Hemminger? 

Dr. HEMMINGER. Thank you very much for the opportunity to 

make some general comments. I would like to come back to the 
75 

concept of the importance of the Office of Science with respect to 

dealing with what I call the innovation deficit. I think this is a 

really critical issue for the United States, and we have not yet approached, I think, the problem that led, for example, to the brain 

drain out of Europe after World War II, but I think we have—we 

are seeing a situation which could in fact lead to that, as Dr. Simon 

has mentioned. 

One of the things that I think has not yet been pointed out is 

the tremendous and unique capability or asset that the United 

States has with respect to the staff at the national labs, not just 

the staff but the users at the national lab facilities. The light 

sources, for example, that the Office of Basic Energy Sciences manages have on the order of 12,000 users annually, and this is really 

a unique, worldwide asset that needs to—that the United States 

has that we should continue to support, and I guess I would like 

to finish just by thanking the Committee again for its strong support for science over the years, and for the opportunity to be here 

today. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman and the panel, and 

certainly you passed our test, Dr. Hemminger. We have those bells 

and whistles come on while you are speaking so we can test your 

ability to focus, and you passed our test swimmingly. So thank you 

very much. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Takano. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Dr. Dehmer, as a former high school teacher, improving STEM 

and STEAM education is one of my top priorities. We must ensure 

we are preparing our students and teachers to succeed in the 21st 

century. Overall, what will the role of the Department of Energy 

be in furthering STEM education, especially as it relates to meeting future energy workforce development needs? 

Dr. DEHMER. Yes, the major role that we play is the support of 

graduate students through our grants program. However, we also 

have a program called Workforce Development for Teachers and 

Scientists. I know this program well because I am actually the director of it, and in addition to the other things I do. That program 

places a thousand people a year at the labs for internships. It is 

undergraduate students, a new graduate program that will place 

graduate students for periods of three months for up to two years 

at the laboratories to do their work, and visiting faculty and students that they might bring with them. So through this program, 

the Department of Energy Office of Science hopes to get students 

and faculty engaged in laboratory research, seeing the laboratories 

as an excellent place to have a career or an excellent place to collaborate with staff at the laboratories. 

Like Dr. Simon, when I was getting out of graduate school, I 

really had no knowledge of what the laboratories were or what they 

did or what the workforce was like. I had a postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory. I thought it would be a couple of years. It turned 

out to be 23 years. And unless we bring people into the laboratories 

and let them understand what those laboratories do, I don’t think 

that we will have as vibrant a workforce as we might have. So this 

is a very important program to us. STEM is very important to us. 
76 

Mr. TAKANO. The Computational Science Graduate Fellowship 

program, which is a partnership between the DOE Office of Science 

and the DOE National Security Administration is widely considered to be a success in meeting the DOE’s national laboratories’ 

computational science workforce needs. Under the President’s 

budget proposal, will this program still be administered by the 

NSF? 

Dr. DEHMER. We don’t know what the implementation of the consolidation of the STEM programs is going to look like because that 

hasn’t been fully explored. I agree with you that the Computational 

Sciences Graduate Fellowship program is one of outstanding fellowship programs that we have run for over 20 years. It has reviewed 

outstandingly, and it is essentially the who’s who of computational 

sciences have gone through that program. So that is one of our concerns in the consolidation. 

Mr. TAKANO. Great. Madam Chair, I have no further questions. 

I yield back. 

Chairwoman LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman. I thank all of our 

Members who attended this hearing today, and I particularly want 

to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony. The members 

of the Committee may have additional questions for you. I know 

Mr. Hultgren had suggested he may follow up with some of you in 

writing. There may be other members of the Committee who will 

do so. The record will remain open for two weeks for additional 

comments and written questions from members, and with our gratitude for our fine panel today, for your attendance and for your 

thoughtful responses to our questions and our gratitude once again, 

this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(77) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
78 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Pat Dehmer 
79 
80 
81 
82 
83 
84 
85 
86 
87 
88 
89 
90 
91 
92 
93 
94 
95 
96 
97 
98 

Responses by Dr. Horst Simon 
99 
100 
101 

Responses by Dr. John Hemminger 

(103) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
104 

SUPPORTING MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY

DR. HORST SIMON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LAB
105 
106 
107 
108 
109 
110 

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