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A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT’S 

FISCAL YEAR 2015 

BUDGET REQUEST FOR SCIENCE AGENCIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 26, 2014 

Serial No. 113–69 

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 COLLINS, New York 

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 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

March 26, 2014 

Page 

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

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

Opening Statements 

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

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 5 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Witnesses: 

The Honorable Dr. John Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology 

Policy, Executive Office of the President 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 10 

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

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 27 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

The Honorable Dr. John Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology 

Policy, Executive Office of the President ........................................................... 68 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Progress Report on Coordinating Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, 

and Mathematics (STEM) Education ................................................................. 102 

(1) 

A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT’S 

FISCAL YEAR 2015 

BUDGET REQUEST FOR SCIENCE AGENCIES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith 

[Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 

Chairman SMITH. The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will come to order. 

Welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘A Review of the President’s 

Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Request for Science Agencies.’’ I am going 

to recognize myself for an opening statement and then the Ranking 

Member for her opening statement. 

The topic of today’s hearing is the President’s budget request for 

the coming year. This is the first of several hearings to examine 

over $40 billion in annual federal research and development spending within the Science Committee’s jurisdiction. 

Unfortunately, this Administration’s science budget focuses, in 

my view, too much money, time, and effort on alarmist predictions 

of climate change. For example, the Administration tried to link 

hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts to climate change. Yet 

even the Administration’s own scientists contradicted the President. 

The Administration also has not been as open and honest with 

the American people as it should. When the Committee asked the 

EPA for the scientific data being used to justify some of the costliest regulations in history, their response was that they didn’t 

have it even though they were using it. When we asked the National Science Foundation last year for their justification in funding 

numerous research grants, the NSF refused to provide a response. 

All government employees and their agency heads need to remember they are accountable to the American taxpayer who pays 

their salary and funds their projects. It is not the government’s 

money; it is the people’s money. 

Further, an estimated $300 million was spent in building the 

website Healthcare.gov prior to its public rollout last October. Secretary Sebelius rightly called this ‘‘a debacle.’’ In its haste to 

launch the Healthcare.gov website, it appears the Obama Administration cut corners that left the site open to hackers and other online criminals. According to experts who testified before the Science 

Committee, millions of Americans are vulnerable to identity theft 

from this website. 

For this reason, the Science Committee has twice asked the 

White House’s Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park, to testify about 

his role in the development of the Healthcare.gov website. Rather 

than allow him to testify before Congress, the White House instead 

chose to make Mr. Park available for interviews with Time magazine. So much for accountability and transparency. 

The Administration’s willful disregard for public accountability 

distracts from the important issues of how America can stay ahead 

of China, Russia, and other countries in the highly competitive race 

for technological leadership. 

Perhaps the greatest example of the White House’s lack of leadership is with America’s space program. The White House’s approach has been to raid NASA’s budget to fund the Administration’s environmental agenda. In the last seven years, NASA’s Earth 

Science Division has grown by over 63 percent. Meanwhile, the 

White House budget proposal would cut NASA by almost $200 million in Fiscal Year 2015 compared to what Congress provided the 

agency this year. 
6 

And the White House’s proposed asteroid retrieval mission is a 

mission without a budget, without a destination, and without a 

launch date. Rather than diminish NASA’s space exploration mission, President Obama should set forth a certain, near-term, realizable goal for NASA’s space exploration. 

Many experts believe that a Mars Flyby mission launched in 

2021 is a potentially worthy near-term goal. A human Mars mission would electrify the American public, excite American scientists, and inspire American students. 

Our leadership has slipped in areas such as space exploration 

where we currently rely on Russia to launch our astronauts into 

space; supercomputing where China currently has the lead; and 

even severe weather forecasting where European weather models 

routinely predict America’s weather better than we can. We need 

to make up for lost ground. 

These budget hearings are about something far more important 

than simply numbers on a ledger. They are about priorities. And 

the Administration should reevaluate its priorities if we want to 

continue to be a world leader in science, space, and technology. 

That concludes my opening statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

The topic of today’s hearing is the President’s budget request for the coming year. 

This is the first of several hearings to examine over $40 billion in annual federal 

research and development (R&D) spending within the Science Committee’s jurisdiction. 

Unfortunately, this Administration’s science budget focuses, in my view, far too 

much money, time, and effort on alarmist predictions of climate change. For example, the Administration tried to link hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts to 

climate change. Yet even the Administration’s own scientists contradicted the president. 

The Administration also has not been as open and honest with the American people as it should. When the Committee asked the EPA for the scientific data being 

used to justify some of the costliest regulations in history, their response was that 

they didn’t have it even though they were using it. 

When we asked the National Science Foundation (NSF) last year for their justification in funding numerous research grants, the NSF refused to provide a response. 

All government employees and their agency heads need to remember they are accountable to the American taxpayer who pays their salary and funds their projects. 

It is not the government’s money; it’s the people’s money. 

Further, an estimated $300 million was spent in building the website 

Healthcare.gov prior to its public rollout last October. Secretary Sebelius rightly 

called this ‘‘a debacle.’’ In its haste to launch the Healthcare.gov website, it appears 

the Obama Administration cut corners that left the site open to hackers and other 

online criminals. According to experts who testified before the Science Committee, 

millions of Americans are vulnerable to identity theft from this website. 

For this reason, the Science Committee has twice asked the White House’s Chief 

Technology Officer, Todd Park, to testify about his role in the development of the 

Healthcare.gov website. Rather than allow him to testify before Congress, the White 

House instead chose to make Mr. Park available for interviews with Time magazine. 

So much for accountability and transparency. 

The Administration’s willful disregard for public accountability distracts from the 

important issues of how America can stay ahead of China, Russia, and other countries in the highly-competitive race for technological leadership. 

Perhaps the greatest example of the White House’s lack of leadership is with 

America’s space program. The White House’s approach has been to raid NASA’s 

budget to fund the Administration’s environmental agenda. In the last seven years, 

NASA’s Earth Science Division has grown by over 63 percent. Meanwhile, the White 
7 

House’s budget proposal would cut NASA by almost $200 million in Fiscal Year 

2015 compared to what Congress provided the agency this year. 

And The White House’s proposed asteroid retrieval mission is a mission without 

a budget, without a destination, and without a launch date. Rather than diminish 

NASA’s space exploration mission, President Obama should set forth a certain, 

near-term, realizable goal for NASA’s space exploration. 

Many experts believe that a Mars Flyby mission launched in 2021 is a potentially 

worthy near-term goal. A human Mars mission would electrify the American public, 

excite American scientists, and inspire American students. 

Our leadership has slipped in areas such as: space exploration where we currently 

rely on Russia to launch our astronauts into space; supercomputing where China 

currently has the lead; and even severe weather forecasting where European weather models routinely predict America’s weather better than we can. We need to make 

up for lost ground. 

These budget hearings are about something far more important than simply numbers on a ledger. They’re about priorities. And the Administration should reevaluate 

its priorities if we want to continue to be a world leader in science, space, and technology. 

Chairman SMITH. And the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman 

from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for hers. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this 

hearing and welcome, Dr. Holdren. It is always good to have you 

before our Committee. 

The Fiscal Year 2015 budget request makes it clear that the 

President remains committed to prioritizing investments in science 

and innovation. While limited by last year’s two-year budget agreement, the President is proposing to identify new sources for research and development funding, including through much-needed 

tax reform. This new funding will also make a big difference for 

some of our top economic development and national security priorities. I welcome discussion on the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative and I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will 

do the same before they outright dismiss it. For if we continue to 

flat-fund or cut our investments in science and innovation under 

the guise of fiscal constraint, our nation will suffer the consequences for many decades to come. 

Under flat and often uncertain budgets, we are not just ceding 

leadership in some areas of science and engineering; we are losing 

the next generation of discoverers and innovators. Early career scientists and engineers, even those in the top of their class, have increasingly come to believe that the Nation is unwilling to invest in 

them and their talents. If nothing changes, we will continue to experience a brain drain that will have profound implications for our 

country’s ability to innovate and compete in the global economy. 

I will make just a few specific comments about the Fiscal Year 

2015 budget proposal under discussion today. I am pleased with 

the Administration’s continued commitment to advanced manufacturing R&D, and workforce development. I hope we can find a path 

forward for Congress to enact the bipartisan bill that would codify 

the national network for manufacturing innovation. 

I also support the increased funding for climate change research 

and mitigation. Climate change is real and its consequences are 

real, even if some uncertainties remain. It might be easy for the 

most privileged among us to sit back and say we will be fine regardless of the severity of the impacts, but the vulnerable among 

us are already hurting and scientists and economists predict it will 

get much worse. I am saddened that we keep debating this at all. 
8 

I still hope we act before it is too late to direct our Nation’s great 

brainpower to developing solutions to reduce the warming and 

mitigate the impacts in our most vulnerable communities. 

It is also why—this is also why I am pleased to see the Administration’s strong budget proposal for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, as well as ARPA– 

E, which will go a long way toward building and capturing the jobs 

of a growing sustainable energy sector. 

At the same time, I have some questions and concerns about the 

budget proposal, including with respect to other parts of the DOE 

budget. I am also disappointed that once again we have a NASA 

budget request that would cut funding for the Nation’s human exploration program even as the Space Launch System and Orion development projects are building hardware and getting ready for 

flight tests. 

In addition, the Administration’s budget request inexplicably 

would cut funds for science, one of the most exciting and productive 

of NASA’s enterprises. 

I also want to learn more about the new scaled-backed proposal 

to overhaul federal investments in STEM education. Now that we 

have the federal STEM education five-year strategic plan, I hope 

we can have a more productive discussion about how the budget 

proposal is aligned with the goals of the strategic plan and how experts in the stakeholder community are being engaged in major 

discussions. 

The truth is we all have things to be concerned about in this 

budget, but the root of the problem is that there isn’t enough 

money to go around to adequately fund all of our priorities. The 

President and the agencies had to make some very tough choices. 

Some of our own choices may be different and Congress will have 

this opportunity to express those choices in our authorization and 

appropriations bills. 

But today, I look forward to hearing more from Dr. Holdren 

about the President’s choices. As we move forward to reauthorize 

several of the agencies and programs within the Committee’s jurisdiction, we need to give due consideration to the President’s own 

proposals. Most importantly, I hope that any legislation that we 

bring to the Floor of the House reflect both the needs to invest in 

our future and our faith and integrity and potential of our nation’s 

STEM talent. 

Thank you, Dr. Holdren, for being here today and thank you for 

your continued contributions to ensuring continued U.S. leadership 

in science and innovation. 

I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this hearing and welcome, Dr. Holdren. 

It’s always good to have you appear before the Committee. 

The fiscal year 2015 budget request makes it clear that the President remains 

committed to prioritizing investments in science and innovation. While limited by 

last year’s two year budget agreement, the President is proposing to identify new 

sources for research and development funding, including through much needed tax 

reform. This new funding will also make a big difference for some of our top economic development and national security priorities. I welcome discussion on the Op-
9 

portunity, Growth, and Security Initiative, and I hope that my colleagues across the 

aisle will do the same before they outright dismiss it. For if we continue to flat fund 

or cut our investments in science and innovation under the guise of fiscal restraint, 

our nation will suffer the consequences for many decades to come. 

Under flat and often uncertain budgets, we are not just ceding leadership in some 

areas of science and engineering, we are losing the next generation of discoverers 

and innovators. Early career scientists and engineers, even those in the top of their 

class, have increasingly come to believe that the nation is unwilling to invest in 

them and their talents. If nothing changes, we will continue to experience a brain 

drain that will have profound implications for our country’s ability to innovate and 

compete in a global economy. 

I’ll make just a few specific comments about the fiscal year 2015 budget proposal 

under discussion today. I am pleased with the Administration’s continued commitment to advanced manufacturing R&D and workforce development. I hope we can 

find a path forward in Congress to enact the bipartisan bill that would codify the 

National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. 

I also support the increased funding for climate change research and mitigation. 

Climate change is real and its consequences are real, even if some uncertainties remain. It might be easy for the most privileged among us to sit back and say we’ll 

be fine regardless of the severity of the impacts. But the vulnerable among us are 

already hurting and scientists and economists predict it will get much worse. I am 

saddened that we keep debating this at all. 

I still hope we act before it is too late to direct our nation’s great brainpower to 

developing solutions to reduce the warming and mitigate the impacts in our most 

vulnerable communities. This is also why I am pleased to see the Administration’s 

strong budget proposal for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency 

and Renewable Energy, as well as ARPAE, which will go a long way toward building and capturing the jobs of a growing sustainable energy sector. 

At the same time, I have some questions and concerns about the budget proposal, 

including with respect to other parts of the DOE budget. I am also disappointed that 

once again we have a NASA budget request that would cut funding for the nation’s 

human exploration program, even as the Space Launch System and Orion development projects are building hardware and getting ready for flight tests. In addition, 

the Administration’s budget request inexplicably would cut funding for science, one 

of the most exciting and productive of NASA’s enterprises. 

I also want to learn more about the new, scaled-back proposal to overhaul federal 

investments in STEM education. Now that we have the Federal STEM Education 

five year strategic plan, I hope we can have a more productive discussion about how 

the budget proposal is aligned with the goals of the strategic plan, and how experts 

in the stakeholder community are being engaged in major decisions. 

The truth is we all have things to be concerned about in this budget, but the root 

of the problem is that there isn’t enough money to go around to adequately fund 

all of our priorities. The President and the agencies had to make some very tough 

choices. Some of our own choices may be different, and Congress will have its opportunity to express those choices in our authorization and appropriations bills, but 

today I look forward to hearing more from Dr. Holdren about the President’s 

choices. 

As we move forward to reauthorize several of the agencies and programs within 

this Committee’s jurisdiction, we need to give due consideration to the President’s 

own proposals. Most importantly, I hope that any legislation that we bring to the 

Floor of the House reflects both the need to invest in our future and our faith in 

the integrity and potential of our nation’s STEM talent. 

Thank you, Dr. Holdren for being here today, and thank you for your continued 

contributions to ensuring continued U.S. leadership in science and innovation. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

Let me welcome Dr. Holdren back to the Committee and we appreciate his being here today. He is our only witness. 

Dr. Holdren serves as the Director of the Office of Science and 

Technology Policy at the White House where he is both the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Co-Chair of 

the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. 

Prior to his current appointment by President Obama, Dr. 

Holdren was a professor in both the Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Earth Science at Harvard. Previously 
10 

he was a member of the faculty at the University of California 

Berkeley where he founded and led a graduate degree program in 

Energy and Resources. Dr. Holdren graduated from MIT and Stanford with degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma 

physics. 

Dr. Holdren, welcome, and we look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN HOLDREN, DIRECTOR, 

OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY, 

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Smith, 

Ranking Member Johnson, Members of the Committee. I am 

pleased to be here to discuss the civilian science and technology 

components of the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget. 

I want to start by observing that science and technology as a 

whole do better in this budget than might be expected given the 

stringent caps that apply. Under those caps, we are not able to propose as much for R&D and for STEM education as the challenges 

and opportunities warrant, but the priority that the President 

places on these domains is evident in the fact that the 1.2 percent 

increase for R&D in his budget over Fiscal Year 2014 enacted is 

six times bigger in percentage terms than the 0.2 percent increase 

in discretionary spending overall set by Congress in the bipartisan 

budget act last December. And STEM education in the President’s 

budget is up 3.7 percent over Fiscal Year 2014 enacted. 

While the base budget in the President’s submission for Fiscal 

Year 2015 comports with the caps in the bipartisan budget act, he 

has also put forward in his submission a vision for stronger investments in America’s future in the form of a supplementary $56 billion Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative. While requiring 

additional Congressional action, it would be fully paid for by spending reforms and closing tax loopholes and would come close to restoring Fiscal Year 2015 discretionary spending to the level originally planned in the Budget Control Act of 2011. The $56 billion 

would be divided equally between the defense and nondefense categories and $5.3 billion of it would support research and development. This would take the $135.4 billion for R&D in the regular 

budget up to $140.7 billion, which would be a 5.2 percent increase 

over Fiscal Year 2014 enacted. And that supplement would include 

nearly $900 million for NASA. 

In my written testimony I describe some of the other supplementary R&D investments proposed in the initiative. I just want 

to mention here a few other points in my written testimony that 

I think deserve particular emphasis. 

First of all, within the spending caps, the budget provides for a 

1.2 percent increase in the combined budgets of the National 

Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, 

and the National Institute of Standards and Technology labs to $13 

billion. These three agencies were last authorized in the America 

COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. I look forward to working with the Congress on reauthorizing the COMPETES legislation 

and its support for these three crucially important science agencies. 

The President’s budget for NASA within the spending caps is 

$17.5 billion. Consistent with the provisions of the NASA Author-
11 

ization Act agreement between the Congress and the Administration, the budget funds continued development of the Space Launch 

System and the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle to enable human 

exploration missions to new destinations. It funds the continued 

operation and enhanced use of the International Space Station, 

which the Administration recently announced its commitment to 

extend through at least 2024. 

It funds the further development of private sector systems to 

carry cargo and crew into low-Earth orbit thus reestablishing a 

cost-effective U.S. capability for these missions and shortening the 

duration of our sole reliance on Russian launch vehicles for access 

to the Station. 

It funds a balanced portfolio of space and Earth science, including a continued commitment to new satellites and programs for 

Earth observation. It funds a dynamic space technology development program and it funds a strong aeronautics research effort. I 

look forward to continuing to work with Congress and with this 

Committee on reauthorizing NASA. The budget requests $5.6 million for OSTP, my office, the same 

as Fiscal Year 2014 enacted, to support OSTP’s diverse missions in 

overseeing and coordinating science and technology efforts across 

the Executive Branch, including efforts that Congress asked us to 

undertake in the two COMPETES Acts, the NASA Authorization 

Act, and other legislation. 

As a final point, I want to emphasize the Administration’s ongoing commitment within the President’s science and technology 

budget not just to R&D but also to STEM education to better prepare the next generation of discoverers, inventors, high-skilled 

workers, and science-savvy citizens. As I noted earlier, the budget’s 

$2.9 billion for STEM education programs is a 3.7 percent increase 

over Fiscal Year 2014 enacted. 

My written testimony and the STEM Education Report I delivered to Congress this week update the Committee on how the 2015 

budget proposal for STEM education differs from last year’s. To 

summarize, the 2015 budget makes important changes that reflect 

input from the STEM education community and from the Committee. This budget continues to reduce fragmentation of STEM 

education programs across government but it does not transfer 

functions and the associated funding between agencies and it focuses strongly on the five key areas identified by the federal STEM 

education five-year strategic plan released last May. 

In closing, I look forward to continuing to work with the Committee to strengthen the Nation’s science and technology portfolio 

and to achieve the economic and other societal benefits it underpins. I will be happy to try to answer any questions the Members 

may have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Holdren follows:] 
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25 
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Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Holdren. 

I will recognize myself for five minutes for questions. 

My first one goes to the budget, and in your testimony you cite 

three agencies: the National Science Foundation, the Department 

of Energy’s Office of Science, and the NIST labs as having been 

identified as especially important to the nation’s continued scientific and economic leadership, and I agree with you. But the last 

budget request by President Bush in 2008 was higher in real 

spending terms for those three agencies than President Obama’s 

current budget. 

[Chart:] 
28 
29 

Chairman SMITH. And on the screen to our left and right you will 

see a chart that shows that in equivalent 2015 dollars, President 

Bush’s Fiscal Year 2009 COMPETES request was about $300 million more than that of President Obama. This will surprise a lot 

of people who may have read otherwise. My question is fairly simple. Why is the Administration’s budget request, at least in my 

view, going in the wrong direction? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, first of all, I will agree with Ranking Member Johnson in her opening statement that there simply is not 

enough money to fund all of the Administration’s priorities. We are 

suffering through an era of very difficult choices. The essence of the 

matter I think is the President’s proposal for the supplementary 

initiative—the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative— 

which would boost the funding of NIH by almost $1 billion, boost 

the funding of NASA by nearly $900 million, boost the funding of 

NSF by half-a-billion dollars, and so on. 

So what we are hoping is that the vision of the President for 

science and technology as embodied not just in the base budget but 

in the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative will be welcomed by the Congress and will lead to funding levels that more 

adequately address the challenges and the opportunities. 

Chairman SMITH. And, Dr. Holdren, as I mentioned in my opening statement, it really comes down to a matter of priorities, and 

in this instance, as I also emphasized, I think the Administration 

needs to perhaps reevaluate its priorities when we had the Bush 

Administration spending more on those nondefense research and 

development than the current Administration. 

Let me go to a question about the National Science Foundation. 

When you testified last year, you agreed that there was room for 

improvement as to how the National Science Foundation prioritizes 

grants. 

[Chart:] 
30 
31 

Chairman SMITH. On the screen now are six NSF-funded studies 

out of many dozens that to me are questionable. You have studied 

fishing practices around Lake Victoria in Africa, $15,000; $340,000 

to study the ecological consequences of early human-set fires in 

New Zealand; a three-year, $200,000 study of the Bronze Age on 

the island of Cyprus; surveying lawsuits in Peru from 1600 to 1700, 

$50,000; the Climate Change Musical that was prepared for Broadway but I am not sure ever was actually produced, $700,000; and 

causes of stress in Bolivia, $20,000. Well, what causes a lot of the 

stress is studying stress in Bolivia. 

My question is this: Do you think the National Science Foundation should in fact provide the public—it is their taxpayers’ dollars 

that are paying for these—with justification for why the research 

grants they choose are worthy of funding? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Let me make a couple of comments to that question. First of all, I did say improvement was possible at the NSF 

with respect to transparency, effectiveness, and so on. I think improvement is possible in virtually every human institution, and I 

think the NSF has improved in the intervening time. They have 

issued new guidelines both to their grantees and to their employees 

about transparency and explanations of the importance and relevance of the research that they fund. These are posted on the NSF 

website. I am not in a position to address on the fly individual 

grants. 

Chairman SMITH. I understand that. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I suggested in the last time I testified here I am 

not sure any of us in this room are as good a judge of the relevance 

of research projects and social—— 

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Holdren, excuse me for interrupting you 

but I want to finish up one more question in a second. But I think 

my question really went to whether you feel that the National 

Science Foundation should justify these grants one way or the 

other? And I know they—as you say, they have been making some 

changes. So far, all we have heard is that words; we haven’t actually seen these changes implemented yet and I know you are going 

to help us with that. But don’t you feel that NSF should justify 

these grants to the American taxpayer? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I believe they do justify the grants to the American taxpayers in what they post on their site about the evaluations, but I would also note that the Organic Act, the National 

Science Foundation Act of 1950, says that what the Foundation is 

supposed to do starts with promoting the progress of science and 

then it goes on to say ‘‘to advance the national health, prosperity, 

and welfare to secure the national defense—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —and other purposes.’’ Funding basic research is 

in the NSF’s mission. It is our most important funder of basic research. We should let it continue to do that. 

Chairman SMITH. We are going to have to agree to disagree perhaps. I do not think that they have justified these grants, at least 

in what they have publicly posted. And as I mentioned to you earlier, I wrote a letter almost a year ago to the head of the National 

Science Foundation and I am still waiting for justification on a 
32 

number of grants, and I think you are going to try to help me get 

those justifications. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I will try to help. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Let me yield myself an additional 

minute, and I don’t do that very often but I would like to squeeze 

in one more question and this goes to NASA. 

In December 2012 the National Academy of Sciences released a 

report about NASA’s strategic direction. That report stated that 

‘‘the committee has seen little evidence that a current stated goal 

for NASA’s human spaceflight program—namely, to visit an asteroid by 2025—has been widely accepted as a compelling destination 

by NASA’s own workforce, by the nation as a whole, or by the 

international community.’’ 

NASA’s own advisory group found the asteroid retrieval mission 

‘‘to be very interesting and entertaining,’’ but ‘‘it was not considered to be a serious proposal.’’ Combine the asteroid retrieval mission with the Obama Administration’s track record of canceling 

space exploration programs, first the Constellation program, then 

a joint robotic mission to Mars, and now SOFIA, an infrared telescope that flies aboard a Boeing 747, and then add in the Administration’s proposed budget which cuts NASA by $186 million, and 

you have to wonder if the Administration is really committed to 

space exploration. 

[Chart:] 
33 
34 

My question is this: As we can see from this chart, the Administration’s budget request is down nine percent in real dollars compared to the last year of the Bush Administration. Is there a good 

explanation for this? 

Dr. HOLDREN. First of all, Mr. Chairman, the last Bush Administration was not laboring under the budget caps that we are laboring under now. 

Chairman SMITH. As I said a while ago, it is a matter of priorities. 

Dr. HOLDREN. It is a matter of priorities. There is not enough to 

go around, and if we get the Opportunity, Growth, and Security 

Initiative, it will enable boosting NASA very substantially. 

Chairman SMITH. But meanwhile, the Administration doesn’t 

give as great a priority to NASA as it does to a lot of other programs. Obviously, that is the result. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Let me address your comment about the asteroid 

mission. The quote you mentioned was two years old. The asteroid 

mission has been reformulated and better explained and now has 

a strong buy-in, not only from NASA staff—— 

Chairman SMITH. They still don’t have a budget and they still 

don’t have an asteroid and they still don’t have a launch date. That 

doesn’t sound to me like a very serious program. 

Dr. HOLDREN. There is a budget. There is a target in time for 

achievement of the mission, and it uses—one of the great attractions of the asteroid mission is it uses capabilities we are already 

paying for. It will use the SLS, it will use the Orion, it will use 

an electric propulsion—— 

Chairman SMITH. And other missions would use those same—use 

the same equipment I think much sooner. And you had the Administration actually cutting SLS and Orion. Again—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. Not a bit. 

Chairman SMITH. —I don’t agree with their priorities. 

Dr. HOLDREN. They are going to stay on schedule. We will have 

SLS. We will have Orion—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —and we will use them for the next space exploration. 

Chairman SMITH. And again, it appears by the cuts that the Administration’s priorities do not coincide with this Committee’s priorities, but I thank you for your answers. 

The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for her 

questions. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Holdren, a number of my colleagues continue to question the 

value of the federal investments in social, behavioral, and economic 

sciences. In the most recent effort among many, the FIRST Act, as 

introduced, proposed to cut NSF’s modest investment in social 

sciences by 40 percent. And my colleagues seem unable to connect 

the dots between human sciences and our national interest. Can 

you please remind us once again both how small our social science 

budget is relative to our overall R&D budget, and more importantly, what we lose in terms of benefits to society when we arbitrarily cut and restrict support for competitively awarded social 

science research? 
35 

Dr. HOLDREN. Okay. Let me start with the Social, Behavioral, 

and Economic Sciences line within NSF. It, in the Fiscal Year 2015 

request, is $272 million out of a total research sum of $5.8 billion, 

so it is a very, very modest proportion of the NSF budget. 

The second thing I would say is there has been abundant documentation of the benefits to society of NSF’s investments in this 

domain. Those fall in the categories of making our democracy work 

better, including work on the conduct of elections, management of 

common property resources without regulation, decision-making 

under uncertainty, understanding negotiation and compromise, and 

more. Tracking and improving economic and social well-being, economic and social databases and statistics, understanding poverty, 

understanding what works in teaching, improving public health 

and safety, risk communication, what causes people to get out of 

the way of hurricanes and tornadoes, what works, optimizing disaster response, controlling the spread of infectious diseases through 

social behavior, reducing human trafficking, understanding the 

patterns of crime enabling us to map crime, allocate law enforcement resources better, national defense and international relations, 

understanding the conduct of other nations, understanding the effectiveness of sanctions, nonverbal communication which helps our 

troops function in environments where other languages are spoken, 

interdisciplinary work involving social and economic sciences in 

cybersecurity, in geographic information systems, in neuroscience, 

psychology, language learning, decision processes. 

I think we are getting a lot of bang for the buck out of social, 

behavioral, and economic sciences in NSF. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

In the FIRST Act, some of my colleagues are proposing to move 

the interagency STEM education coordinating committee, known as 

CoSTEM, from the National Science and Technology Council to 

NSF. CoSTEM was created at the NSTC in response to a requirement that we put in the 2010 COMPETES Act. I have a few concerns about this, including taking resources out of other important 

NSF programs and also the decreased stature of the Committee if 

we move it out of the White House. What are your thoughts on 

moving CoSTEM’s responsibilities to NSF? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, thank you for that question. I think the 

CoSTEM, the Committee on STEM education, should stay where it 

is in the National Science and Technology Council. The reason for 

that is the NSTC is the body that was set up to coordinate and 

oversee STEM-related activities that cross agency and department 

boundaries. 

And of course, as further discussion will doubtless illuminate and 

as this Committee knows, the STEM education function is spread 

across many different departments and agencies in this government, harnessing the special capabilities of NASA, of NIH, the Department of Education, the NSF, the Smithsonian Institution. And 

it is obviously in the interest of coordination and efficiency that the 

oversight of that operation be in a place that includes all of the 

stakeholders, all of the participants as the NSTC CoSTEM does. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. Well, I have 15 more seconds. 
36 

Many of us have concern about some of the numbers in the President’s R&D budget request. For example, the request for NSF is 

below inflation, but the President is also proposing R&D funding 

as part of the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative. How 

does this initiative fit into the President’s commitment to continue 

our investments in science and innovation? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, as I said in my testimony, we think the base 

budget doesn’t have enough room for all of the priorities of the 

President and what we think should be the priorities of the Nation, 

and that is why that supplemental Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative was devised, to provide an opportunity for the President to say what he thinks we really need and to provide the Congress an opportunity to provide it. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized 

for his questions. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

And Dr. Holdren, thank you very much for being with us today. 

We have heard the word prioritize a lot here, and in order to 

prioritize of course we have to make sure that judgments are being 

made and priorities are being made based on accurate information 

and especially when we are talking about major energy and environmental decisions that would have amazing costs to society, as 

well as jobs and reflect the standard of living of our people. 

The Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA Janet McCabe was 

here just a short time ago and I had to ask her a question five 

times before I got an answer, and then she really didn’t answer it 

at that point. So I would kind of like to ask you if I could get an 

answer to this question from the Administration. 

We keep seeing this being presented to us as a fact saying that 

global warming is being caused by human activity and that 97 percent of all the scientists believe that global warming is caused by— 

that there is global warming and it is caused by human activity. 

When I am looking at where they get the information and as you 

look very closely at this, you find out that invitation was sent out 

to 10,000 Earth scientists. Less than 1/3 responded, and of those, 

the pool is narrowed down and this turns out to be 97 percent of 

77 scientists who were selected. And we have even heard this figure repeated here in this chamber and in our debates. 

Now, let me just ask you now. Do you believe that 97 percent of 

the scientists believe that global warming is a product of human 

behavior? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in any particular 

number to two significant figures. I believe that the vast majority 

of scientists who are actively working in the domain of climate 

science take it as the established consensus view—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —that global warming is real, it is happening, it 

is caused in substantial part by human activity—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So you agree—- 

Dr. HOLDREN. —and it is already doing harm. 
37 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. But you agree that this is a bogus 

figure? 

Dr. HOLDREN. No, I wouldn’t say it is a bogus figure. I would just 

say that there are considerable uncertainties around an exact figure. But the fact is, for example, that the National Academies—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Holdren, I am asking—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. If I may finish—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. —you a direct question. Why can’t anybody 

admit that you have got a group of people reading out a bogus theory here? 

Dr. HOLDREN. This was published in a peer-reviewed article. It 

was based on generally accepted social science practices for doing 

polling where you never get a complete response. I am not going 

to defend 97 percent as accurate to the two significant figures that 

provided—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. That is good. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —but I would remind you—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So that—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —that every National Academy of Sciences in the 

world, including all of the National Academies of the G8+5—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —or what is now the G7+5—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —have agreed and issued a joint statement that 

climate change is real, largely caused by humans, dangerous, and 

we need to take action—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And does the Russian Academy of Sciences 

agree with that? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Then why did the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences tell me just the opposite? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I have no idea—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —about a conversation—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —that you might have had with the president of 

the Academy. They signed the statement. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I can provide it to you for the record. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Well, let me just note—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. I would be happy to do so. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, let me note for the record that I had 

a meeting with a large number of the scientists in Russia and the 

head of the Academy of Sciences said just the opposite to me. 

Let me ask this—about this. Do you believe that tornadoes and 

hurricanes today are more ferocious and more frequent than they 

were in the past? 

Dr. HOLDREN. There is no evidence relating to tornadoes, none 

at all, and I don’t know of any spokesman for the Administration 

who has said otherwise. 

With respect to hurricanes, there is some evidence of an increase 

in the North Atlantic, although not in other parts of the world. 
38 

With respect to droughts and floods, which were mentioned in an 

earlier statement, there is quite strong evidence that in some regions they are being—some regions—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —they are being enhanced if you will—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —by climate change, not caused by climate change 

but influenced by climate change. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Well, I note all of the—I don’t want 

to sound pejorative but there are weasel herds what I used to call 

it when I was a journalist that in some areas—globally, it is—there 

is not more droughts. Globally, there are not more hurricanes and 

they are not more ferocious, is that correct? 

Dr. HOLDREN. If you want to take a global average, the fact is 

a warmer world is getting wetter. There is more evaporation so 

there is more precipitation, so on a global average, there are unlikely to be more droughts. The question is whether drought-prone 

regions are suffering increased intensity and duration of droughts, 

and the answer there is yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we actually have more water and more 

drought. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Absolutely. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, is recognized for 

her questions. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, thank you very much. 

And thank you very much, Dr. Holdren, for being here today and 

also for your tremendous service to our nation and your leadership 

in science generally. I am so pleased by the efforts that you have 

made. 

And I want to discuss in particular just a couple of things where 

I hope that we can have some—a different outcome than in the proposed budget. First, the reduction—SOFIA is something that has 

produced terrific results, and I realize that the—it is kind of ironic 

to hear people who voted for the sequester question the amount of 

budget available for science, but we do have a tight budget. 

But to me it is a problem to reduce when you have spent so much 

to get the results. And so I won’t get into it. I will just say I do 

not believe that the Congress is going to accept the elimination of 

SOFIA. There will be a bipartisan effort to change that and I hope 

to be and plan to be part of that bipartisan effort. 

I wanted to raise the issue of the budget for fusion. As you know, 

last year, the National Academies released a report which found 

that several inertial fusion concepts, including the approaches 

taken by the National Ignition Facility and the Z Pulsed Power Facility have enough technical promise to justify dedicated federal 

support for inertial fusion R&D relevant to energy, not just the 

weapons reliability. However, there is no program currently in the 

federal government which directly officially supports inertial fusion 

research and technology development activities as it relates to energy production. 

Now, we have discussed this—I know Congressman Swalwell will 

probably have his own set of questions—with the Department of 

Energy and the new Secretary, but it—I would like to ask you to— 
39 

whether you and the Secretary of Energy have had an opportunity 

to discuss the National Academy report and whether a collaboration might be in order to actually bring that National Academy 

suggestion into reality? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, let me start by saying, Congresswoman Lofgren, that the 2015 budget does provide $329 million for the 

continued operation of the National Ignition Facility and the Inertial Confinement Fusion program at Livermore, and I believe, and 

I think the Secretary of Energy would probably say the same, that 

the energy goal at NIF is served by the continuing effort to achieve 

ignition. The principal challenge with NIF is to get to ignition. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. There have been important steps forward but we 

are not there yet, and until NIF can get to ignition, there won’t be 

a basis for figuring out how to turn it into an energy source. And 

we got $329 million that is going to that facility in continued pursuit of that goal. 

Ms. LOFGREN. If I may, Dr. Holdren, and I do appreciate that you 

have been out there and certainly have boosted morale considerably by your visit to Sandia and Livermore. We have lost hundreds 

of employees at Lawrence Livermore lab and the 80 scientists, and 

I was actually out at the lab a few weeks ago and the attrition rate 

is about 1–1/2 scientists a week. 

And here is my concern, that unless we can give some assurance 

as to stability, I mean Livermore is not in my district but it is an 

hour’s drive from Silicon Valley and we have competition for these 

scientists and they are looking—they are leaving. And so I want to 

make sure that we have the capacity to actually pursue. We have 

had some tremendous successes in the last few months. Obviously, 

we don’t know, but recently one of the top scientists there said we 

don’t have ignition yet but we have a lit match. And so we want 

to make sure that we get this done and I will just leave it at that. 

I wanted to touch on the open access issue. You have just given 

us the update, which I appreciate so very much. As you know, we 

had a little disagreement here in the Committee, the Subcommittee 

recently, and I just wanted to thank you for your efforts and to 

make sure that you are aware we are going to do our best that that 

does not go off the rails. I think it is essential that when the taxpayers pay for research, that scientists get access to that research, 

and I wanted to commend your efforts in that regard. 

And with that, I would yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer, is recognized. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Holdren, thank you for being here this morning. Two years 

ago in April of 2012, the President signed an Executive Order announcing the formation of an interagency working group led by the 

White House to coordinate and plan agency activities for hydraulic 

fracturing research. I think that was composed of the Department 

of Energy, EPA, the U.S. Geological Survey. It committed to developing this interagency plan. And I think at that time the Administration told Congress that they would see the research plan January of last year, and so that would have been January of 2013. 

That date came and went and January of 2014 has come and gone. 
40 

And it has been two years and we haven’t seen anything from the 

report. Dr. Holdren, where is the plan? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Congressman, I will have to get back to you on exactly where the plan is. We certainly have been looking at the issue 

of fracking and with an eye to making sure that the very important 

resource represented by the gas and oil that can be produced in 

this way continues to be available to the American people by virtue 

of ensuring that the practices continue to warrant the confidence 

of the public that this is being done in a way that is not imperiling 

groundwater, that is not aggravating air pollution, and so on. 

As to the exact fate of this report, I would propose to get back 

to you for the record. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Well, I think I am troubled by a couple of 

things. One is that there was really not a lot of evidence to really 

justify, you know, moving down this road. You know, I am from 

Texas and we have been doing hydraulic fracturing in Texas for a 

very, very long time. And it appears that this Administration is on 

some kind of a witch-hunt trying to find some example somewhere, 

but unfortunately—or fortunately for the industry is that, you 

know, there has never been any evidence. But then we are going 

to go spend a bunch of money and promise, you know, that we are 

going to do this study, two years come and go, there is no study, 

yet the Administration still continues to take, in my opinion, a very 

negative, slanted view towards that technology. 

And so I have a couple questions that—if—while you are going 

to do a little research on there, I would like to know when we are 

going to see the report and—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. I will be happy to let you know as soon as I find 

out when the report will be available, but I want to emphasize this 

is not a witch-hunt. It is not spending much money. But the point 

is there is widespread concern in the American public at least in 

some parts of the country that we have to make absolutely sure 

that this is done safely. I don’t want and the President doesn’t 

want to lose access to this natural gas and this oil because we have 

messed it up, and our intention is to maintain access to this economically—and in terms of security also very important—set of resources by making sure that the country does it right. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. And while you are doing your research, it 

would be interesting to see, you know, how much money has been 

spent by the various agencies on this and how much time has been 

devoted to it. And I guess the other question is when the report is 

completed, you know, how will it be distributed? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, of course all of these reports that we produce 

end up being posted on the website of the relevant agency. Many 

of them end up being posted on the White House website. I will be 

happy to make sure that you personally get a copy when the report 

is ready, and I will again, as I have said for the record, provide you 

with an answer on the pace of development of this report, how 

much money has been spent, and so on. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Neugebauer. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
41 

First of all, Dr. Holdren, thank you for your leadership at OSTP 

and for the Administration’s commitment to advanced manufacturing. It is big area of focus for me and something that I believe 

is a big need for the country and looking to what our future is 

going to be in terms of economic growth and job creation. 

Institutes like the recently announced Digital Manufacturing Design Innovation Institute in Chicago which utilizes high-performance computing and digital tools to help industries make products 

better, faster, and more profitably are vital to reinvigorating our 

manufacturing base. And I think we should be doing more of those, 

as the Administration has been proposing. 

I also would like to thank you for your strong support for social 

science at NSF in the President’s budget request. I know that 

Ranking Member Ms. Johnson had raised this issue and I just 

wanted to say I am glad to see healthy increases in spending for 

SBE for next Fiscal Year in the request, as you had mentioned in— 

earlier in answering the question. 

The first question that I wanted to raise addresses the future of 

exascale computing. I greatly appreciate the Administration’s leadership on high-performance computing. In Illinois we are blessed to 

have two of the fastest supercomputers in the world with Mira at 

Argonne and Blue Waters at the University of Illinois. These two 

supercomputers make the DMDI Institute possible, make the— 

what is going to be done there and make Illinois a great place to 

put that institute. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is catching up to us and we 

need to continue making strides towards exascale computing. Could 

you give your thoughts on the future of the federal high-performance computing projects and how the budget helps us push the 

boundaries towards exascale? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, let me start by saying that the Obama Administration shares your view of the importance of high-performance computing, which includes but is not limited to getting to the 

exascale. It also includes capabilities relating to handling very 

large, very high-velocity flows of data for those high-performance 

computers to use. It involves advances in software so that the capabilities of these multiple processor machines can be effectively utilized. 

We are currently engaged in a review of the whole high-performance computing program, which OSTP is leading, along with all of 

the relevant departments and agencies with an aim toward ensuring that United States’ capabilities in this domain remain the best 

in the world. 

And I would note that although it was pointed out earlier that 

the fastest computer in the world is currently a Chinese computer, 

its capabilities when one takes into account the data-handling capabilities and software performance capabilities, the United States 

is still in the lead in terms of real capacity of our high-performance 

computers. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Any idea of when that review is going to be—that 

you are conducting is going to be completed and—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. I think a matter of months, not weeks but—well, 

within a few months. 
42 

Mr. LIPINSKI. All right. My next question focuses on STEM education. I recently learned that a new study will be released tomorrow on a Chicago-based STEM teacher professional development 

program at the Museum of Science and Industry. I am told the 

study will confirm the museum’s innovative approach increases 

teacher knowledge and achieves higher rates of student growth. 

One-third of Chicago Public K–8 schools are involved with this program. I think this is an excellent example of the value that museums and science centers bring to the table not just for student 

learning but for teacher professional development. 

A lot of museums and science centers like MSI are looking at declining funding from federal programs, particularly with the proposed elimination of the competitive Education Grant program at 

NOAA and the lack of a line item for the program for science museums and planetariums at NASA. The Administration reorganized— 

reorganization proposal is somewhat changed from last year including 10 million for the Smithsonian rather than last year’s 25 million. Can you give your thoughts on the value of the informal 

science education that museums and science centers provide and 

tell the Committee how this new proposal would fund STEM education broadly but also support these informal types of activities? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, to make this relatively brief, the proposal, as 

it has emerged in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget, does take account 

of the value of informal education, and that happens not just 

through what the Smithsonian does but it happens through what 

agencies like NASA and NOAA and NIH do in partnership with 

museums around the country. There are a lot of these partnerships; there are a lot of joint efforts which also involve the Department of Education. 

I happened to speak with NASA Administrator Bolden yesterday 

about NASA’s STEM education programs and what they plan to do 

under the Fiscal Year 2015 budget, as well as what they are doing 

in Fiscal Year 2014, and he stressed, as I expect he will in his testimony tomorrow before the Space Subcommittee of this Committee, that NASA is working in close collaboration with a number 

of departments, the Department of Education and with a number 

of entities around the country, on this continuing use of NASA’s extraordinary resources for inspiration and instruction to reach the 

wider community. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I ran out of time. I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. 

The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo, is recognized. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Holdren, I heard SOFIA mentioned a little while ago, and 

could you kind of explain for this Committee why NASA invested 

about $1.1 billion and has been working on this project for over 23, 

24 years; it just became operationally capable I believe 11 days before the President’s proposed budget decided to eliminate this 

project and no longer invest in it leaving basically our German 

partners who have been a partner of NASA on this for over 20 

something years; can you tell us a little bit about the project and 

why it was so important 20 years ago but it is no longer, I guess, 

relevant to our space program today? 
43 

Dr. HOLDREN. I wouldn’t say, first of all, that it is not relevant, 

but its high operating costs are very difficult to accommodate within the current budget caps. Just to explain to the group what it is, 

SOFIA stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. It has been a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. It is an airborne observatory based on a Boeing 747 

SP wide-body aircraft. It has a 2.5 meter diameter telescope, which 

accesses the sky through a special door built into the airplane. 

That telescope has particularly attractive capabilities because the 

Boeing 747 is flying above most of the water vapor in the atmosphere which would interfere with the infrared capabilities of the 

telescope and it is an attractive project—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. So you—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —but it was ranked behind other projects—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. Who ranked—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —by the Decadal Survey—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. Okay. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —conducted by the National Academy of 

Sciences—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. Right. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —which we rely on very heavily in making 

these—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. Was an internal review done? I mean you—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. Oh, absolutely. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Okay. And an external review? You are taking the 

Decadal report and saying it was a lower priority—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. We are taking the Decadal report—— 

Mr. PALAZZO. Did you do a senior review, which is of course the 

process of where you have the community come in and actually 

analyze it for, you know, its benefit to the program? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I would have to defer to Administrator Bolden. 

You may want to ask him this tomorrow. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Can we see a copy of this? I mean you said a report—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. I say I will defer to Administrator Bolden. I know 

the issue was reviewed within NASA; I don’t know that there was 

an external review beyond the Decadal Survey, which, as I say, 

ranked it behind other projects that we are continuing. 

Mr. PALAZZO. I understand that, Dr. Holdren, but, you know, we 

invested $1.1 million in this project, been working on it for over 23, 

24 years. It comes—it came operationally capable 11 days before 

the President’s budget was announced that it was no longer going 

to fund this project. So I mean we have to understand why we had 

invested American taxpayer dollars in something that apparently 

was extremely important to NASA and just as a—you know, a 

wave of a wand it is no longer important. The American taxpayer 

deserves this. Congress deserves an answer as well. 

And just real quick, I mean we understand that the Chinese are 

cultivating, you know, relationships in Europe a lot. You know, 

they are very aggressively pursuing our European friends. And so 

when this Administration just unilaterally cancels a project with 

one of our strong European partners, what kind of message does 

this send to the international community? 
44 

Dr. HOLDREN. It is not a message I relish sending, but again, I 

would emphasize that there is not enough money to go around, and 

if the Congress will pass the President’s proposed Opportunity, 

Growth, and Security Initiative, there will be nearly another $1 billion for NASA, and that SOFIA decision can be revisited. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Well, I agree. There is—you know, we continue to 

fight over shrinking discretionary pots of money, and until this Administration and our colleagues get serious about addressing the 

number one drivers of our deficits and our debt, we are going to 

continue to have these issues where we are not going to be able to 

fund not only just NASA priorities, we are not going to be able to 

fund our Armed Forces. And, you know, at a time when the world 

has become a lot more dangerous, not safer, we are skirting our responsibilities. And I hope this President, I hope this—his Administration and future Congresses will address that serious issue in the 

future. 

I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Palazzo. 

The gentlewoman from Maryland, Ms. Edwards, is recognized. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would just like to say to my colleagues on the other side 

of the aisle I would be happy to work with them and I know the 

Members on the side would be if we are talking about increasing 

budgets that NASA would have, whether it is for SOFIA or other 

priorities so that those priorities meet the needs of the American 

people, but we haven’t seen that kind of cooperation frankly. 

Dr. Holdren, I wanted to give you a chance to respond to how 

some Members use the titles—and we have heard it today—of a 

few National Science Foundation grants to imply that the research 

that was funded by the grant wasn’t necessary or it wasn’t of national interest. We have heard that this morning and I think it is 

fairly easy to imply that research may not be in the national interest by only giving the title, but when you really look into these 

studies—and I would urge my colleagues to do that before just 

reading the title—you realize their importance. 

For example, some Members have questioned grants studying 

stress in Bolivia. Well, if someone looked into the research and not 

just the title, what they would find is that this study was investigating a relatively isolated group of people who were remarkably 

resilient. Understanding a group like that and comparing it to the 

U.S. population, which is less resilient in some cases, could be helpful to understand the link between behavioral and social factors 

and diseases like cardiovascular disease that we are seeing in the 

U.S. population. 

Other grants that have been mentioned are similar, and once you 

look into the research, you actually read, you understand its importance. 

And so I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that and if 

you could leave me some time so that I can ask you about NASA. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I get the impression some of my answers have 

been a little long. I apologize. 

I would just point out that NSF, with the help and encouragement from this Committee, has taken steps to make more transparent and accountable their whole process. They have established 
45 

an internal transparency and accountability working group, they 

have sent out instructions to all of their staff on standards for 

transparency and accountability in describing grants, and I think 

that is already showing up in the detail being provided in the justifications for grants on the NSF website. And I emphasize that 

that information is available on the NSF website, and people who 

are interested can take a look and find out whether the justifications for these awards are in fact persuasive. 

My own view is that NSF has done a great job with the peer review on these grants. Some of the funny-sounding titles, as you 

point out, when you look into them do make a lot of sense. And, 

you know, I just don’t feel that I am well-qualified or that most 

people in this room are well-qualified to second-guess NSF’s superb 

peer-review committees. And the one place where improvement has 

been made is in the transparency of those justifications available 

to the Congress and available to the public. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Well, thank you very much. And I mean I will go 

to the NSF website and I would encourage my colleagues to do the 

same. 

Dr. Holdren, I wonder when we talked about SOFIA—and you 

can get back to the Committee about this and I know that we will 

be exploring it even more—it would be helpful to know the process 

that the Administration and that the Agency uses in justifying a 

cut to a program or eliminating a program. I think that is always 

difficult to absorb because programs aren’t just programs; they are 

jobs and they are science and they are investments that have been 

made. But every once in a while, you know, you do have to kind 

of, you know, cut. And we understand that. 

But I would like to know with respect to SOFIA at some later 

point as we continue to examine the budget what the rationale 

was, what are the steps, the internal processes within the Administration to make a determination that SOFIA had to go. And if we 

were to restore SOFIA, wouldn’t that mean adding another $83 to 

$85 million into the budget in order to restore that? And I just 

hope our colleagues understand that that is what the choice is. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Thank you. I will provide more information on 

SOFIA. 

I would note that NASA is looking at the possibility of other potential partners in the international community to defray those 

costs because, again, precisely the problem is there is just not 

enough money in the current budget to support the operating costs 

of that mission with just the partnership of the Germans. But if 

we can expand that partnership, that is one avenue, and another 

avenue of course is finding more money, which the Opportunity, 

Growth, and Security Initiative would do. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you very much and I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, is recognized. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. 

Holdren, for being here. 

From our previous discussions, I hope you know that I do appreciate you and appreciate the critical role that the Office of Science 

and Technology Policy can have in ensuring a competitive future 

for our children. 
46 

That being said, it is hard for me to understand the misaligned 

science priorities this President has put forward in his budget yet 

again. Whether it is the federal government getting involved with 

things best handled at the state and local level or this Administration’s focus on applied research and subsidies for favored industries 

that I see as crowding out the basic scientific research needed to 

bring about the next great technology, invention, or cure. This Administration does not seem to have its priorities in the proper 

place. 

I am a staunch supporter of STEM education and have been 

greatly impressed by the student-led robotics team in my district. 

Some of them guided me to complete an Hour of Code, programming a computer game through computer coding. 

The federal government has been funding STEM education for 

decades. Every year, a larger emphasis is placed on the subject and 

every year we hear how America is falling behind other countries 

in math and science. 

Dr. Holdren, do you get the sense of that the real problems with 

America’s science education cannot simply be solved with more federal spending? Do you think there are larger societal issues to address that would place more value in spurring our kids to study 

math and science? 

Dr. HOLDREN. The short answer is, Congressman, that it is a 

larger societal issue. And one of the things we discovered going to 

other countries and the President has discovered talking to other 

heads of state in places where kids do better than our kids on the 

standardized tests is they are feeling more pressure from parents 

to do well in education. We need to get parents more involved in 

the importance of the education their kids are getting—— 

Mr. HULTGREN. I agree. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —and it is not just a matter of federal spending. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I have seen it really with our robotics teams, the 

amazing commitment of the parents and mentors being engaged in 

this as well. 

There is a raging debate in my home State and across the country about the adoption of the Common Core State Standards and 

whether or not they are wise and sufficient to bring up the level 

of competitiveness of our country—that our country is pursuing. I 

would like to know what the role OSTP has had in consultation 

with stakeholder communities, federal agencies, and the States in 

developing curriculum for Common Core? 

Dr. HOLDREN. OSTP, to my knowledge, has not had a role in that 

Common Core process so I would need to look into whether there 

has been such a role in earlier times. 

Mr. HULTGREN. If you could check, that would be great. You 

know, these standards are purported to be state-led efforts for 

Common Core. This is a—was through the action of the States and 

not coercion by federal government that they adopted these standards. But when I talk to my educators and local officials back in 

my district, they are only seeing this as a top-down initiative. Now, 

it is getting to the point where our schools are feeling as if they 

are being coerced into adopting these standards or their funding 

will get cut off. That kills the ability to collaborate and focus our 

education system on our kids. 
47 

I want to switch subjects a bit. I would like to talk about federal 

R&D funding, one of my favorite subjects, especially in basic research where government does play a key role. The President has 

tried to turn science into a political wedge issue, which it is not 

and should never be. So I would like to clear up what his budget 

actually does to science and his precedents. Your budget provides 

$135.4 billion for federal investment in R&D. Do you know what 

the previous Administration proposed, Dr. Holdren? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, it would depend on which year they proposed 

it. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Well, what I saw is $147 billion, which was 20 

percent more funding than we use in constant Fiscal Year 2015 

dollars. This certainly does not seem to match with the President’s 

rhetoric, but what I find most alarming are the cuts in basic scientific research. Your proposal has $32.1 billion going to basic research, is that correct? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I think that is right. 

Mr. HULTGREN. When we are talking about budgeting, we are 

really talking about priorities and that is really what all this is 

about. There are limited resources. Families in our district are having to tighten their belts. We have to have priorities here as well. Under President Bush, the request was $32.2 billion in constant 

dollars but the basic R&D share was much higher. Under the current proposal, basic research will be at .8 percent of the federal 

budget. The previous Administration had it at 1.1 percent, significantly higher. I know that you may try to justify these overall cuts 

by singling out the defense R&D cut; non-R&D was still a high priority during the Bush Administration. We need to get our priorities 

right or we will not continue to have the best research universities 

and in fact facilities available to our kids moving forward. 

In our constrained budgetary environment, we need to be sending clear signals to our kids as well as the increasingly international scientific community that science is important to us. The 

President’s budget, I believe, fails to set this message—send this 

message, and I want to see that changed. 

So my time is expired. I yield back, Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, is recognized 

for his questions. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Holdren—Dr. 

Holdren, it is good to see you again. Thank you for being here. 

Thank you for spending the time. 

I want to start, Doctor, by going back to an issue that I know 

you know is important to me and one that we have discussed at 

length on a number of occasions and I appreciate your followup and 

your advocacy on these. 

As you know, STEM education has been an issue that has been 

very important to me and important to Massachusetts and my district. The area of particular interest to me and I wanted to push 

on with you a little bit is middle-skilled jobs in coordination with 

community colleges and vocational schools. 

There is a report from the Brookings Institution—or Institute 

that came out about a year ago that highlighted facts that I am 

sure you are very familiar with, but that 26 million of all jobs— 
48 

or, excuse me, 26 million U.S. jobs, 20 percent of all jobs require 

high knowledge in any one STEM field. Half of all STEM jobs, 

though, are available to workers without a four-year college degree 

and those jobs pay on average $53,000 a year, about ten percent 

higher than jobs with similar educational requirements. STEM jobs 

that require high level of knowledge or high—over at least a bachelor’s degree are clustered in certain Metropolitan areas that we all 

know—Silicon Valley; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Jose—but 

other STEM-based economies like—require—jobs are available for 

those that require less than a bachelor’s degree. There are robust 

economies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Birmingham, Alabama, 

and Wichita, Kansas, as well. 

And I guess my question for you, Doctor, is through much of the 

report that I have reviewed, there seems to be an absence of focus 

on community college, vocational schools, vocational training, technical training, and I want to get your thoughts as to 1) where the 

Administration is on this and 2) how we can be helpful and supportive. 

Dr. HOLDREN. We are aware of the gap in high skills worker education short of four-year colleges. Just a couple of months ago we 

brought a large number of community college Presidents into the 

White House to discuss what they are doing and how we can be 

more helpful in what they are doing to link up with manufacturing 

firms in their regions to create curricula that match training to the 

jobs that are actually available in those regions. 

The National Science Foundation’s budget in the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 proposal has something over $60 million for NSF’s 

Advanced Technological Education program, the ATE program, 

which centers on education of technicians for high technology 

fields. So this is something we are working on. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And what—and I appreciate that, Doctor. 

I visited a number of vocational schools and technical training 

schools in my district. These kids are coming out excited about 

math, excited about engineering, excited about science, building 

things that I certainly never built when I was in high school. I 

was—I still know the quadratic equation. I don’t know what good 

that is doing me. These kids are building things that actually can 

work, and when their plumbing gets backed up, they can fix it and 

I have got to call one of them to come fix it. 

So I guess my point is these are jobs that aren’t going to get 

outsourced. These are jobs that, as studies have shown, are—have 

a high earning capacity, and there are jobs that are available today 

that are going to be available in the future. And I would just ask 

that the Administration continue to focus on this, and if there are 

ways that we can be helpful on it, we certainly would like to be 

as well. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Thank you. And we will keep focused on it. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you. And one other issue that I just—I 

know my time is running short, but I wanted to see if you could 

comment on there has been a couple of articles of late, even just 

in the past couple of weeks, about the prevalence or increasing 

prevalence of private philanthropy to take over some of the—or to 

fill the need—the gap if you will from some of these—from the retraction in the government funding for basic research. Much of this 
49 

philanthropy is obviously very well-needed and we should encourage it and I certainly encourage it. 

The issue with it is that it is often pinpointed or—to a specific 

target by the donor, which is great and it is their money; they 

should do what they want with it. But do you see any long-term 

challenge with relying more and more on private philanthropy to 

fill the need here if we are not making the—there seems to be 

broad-based support for this idea that this is one of the essential 

areas of basic responsibilities of government, yet an unwillingness 

to make that commitment. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I don’t like the idea of calling it reliance on the 

philanthropic sector. I think we should welcome the engagement of 

the philanthropic sector and funding research in general and basic 

research in particular. And there is a new consortium of major private foundations which is working together to try to boost funding 

for basic research rather than, as you note, targeted research. 

There is a lot of the latter. We have some very important philanthropic support for the BRAIN Initiative—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Um-hum. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —that this Administration has launched from a 

number of private foundations, but we are getting support as well 

for increased philanthropic funding of basic research. But that does 

not mean that the country can rely on that. It is not going to be 

big enough. The government needs to continue to meet its fundamental responsibility to support basic research in this country. We 

would like to be able to support more of it in this budget, and 

again, we will support more of it in this budget if we get the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative supported by Congress. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Doctor. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the extra time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. 

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Holdren, always a pleasure to have you here. 

I wonder if you could give us a status on the supply, availability, 

inventory of Pu-238 and any other nuclear fuel we may need to 

travel in space? 

Dr. HOLDREN. My understanding is that there is a new agreement between NASA and the Department of Energy on producing 

plutonium-238 for our space missions, and I believe that that 

agreement will be to meeting the needs that we foresee. 

Mr. POSEY. How much do we have in stock now? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I would have to get back to you on what is actually in the stockpile at this moment. 

Mr. POSEY. Are you aware that they are getting rid of anything 

that we have in inventory now? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I am not sure what you mean by ‘‘getting rid of.’’ 

Mr. POSEY. That there may be plans to eliminate part of the inventory that we now have. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I am not aware of any such plans, but I will look 

into it. This is something I would have to explore with the Department of Energy. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. Do you have a pretty good idea of how long 

it takes to purify this plutonium and how much it costs to do that? 
50 

Dr. HOLDREN. Not off the top of my head. I would expect that 

in terms of production, we are talking about a timescale of six 

months to a couple of years I would guess. 

Mr. POSEY. And a whole bunch of money, but if you would check 

on that and seriously get with me and let me know the status of 

it—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. Happy to do that. 

Mr. POSEY. We had somebody here from the National Science 

Foundation, who had actually—who said she wasn’t a scientist and 

so couldn’t answer any questions. And I was just curious. I asked 

her how many Ice Ages she thought that this Earth had been 

through. I mean everything I can gather a minimum of three, a 

maximum some say from five to seven, but I just want to know 

how many Ice Ages you think we have gone through? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, again, I don’t remember off the top of my 

head. I think the numbers you mentioned are in the ballpark but 

I would have to look at the record. The Earth has undergone climate changes throughout its entire history. The difference is that 

for most of that history there weren’t seven billion people on the 

planet who needed to be fed, clothed, and kept prosperous, and the 

other difference is—— 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —that the pace of change was generally much 

slower. 

Mr. POSEY. I am running out of time. I am running out of time. 

I am aware of that. 

You know, obviously we have had global warming for a long 

time. You can’t have one seamless Ice Age that encompasses three 

Ice Ages. We had to have warming periods between each one of 

those. And so it is a natural phenomenon and, you know, just because we are alive now, the tectonic plate shifts aren’t going to 

stop, the hurricanes and tsunamis aren’t going to stop, the asteroid 

strikes aren’t going to stop. These things have gone on for eons and 

they are going to continue to go on for eons. 

What do you think the temperature was on Earth before the disappearance of the dinosaurs? 

Dr. HOLDREN. There have been periods when the temperature 

was three, four, five degrees Celsius warmer than it is now, and 

the difference between the circumstances you are describing and 

the circumstance we are in now is the changes that are being imposed on the climate, in substantial part as a result of human activity, are faster than the ability of ecosystems to adapt and maybe 

even more importantly faster than the ability of human society to 

adapt. There are a lot of stresses, as you point out, that we can’t 

control, but the stresses we can control that are imposing burdens 

on our society we ought to think about controlling. 

Mr. POSEY. No doubt about that. And I don’t think there is anyone—I haven’t heard anyone say ever from either side of the spectrum that there is no such thing as climate change. I mean it is— 

we have had climate change since the day the Earth was formed, 

whenever that was depending on how—whatever you believe, and 

we will have climate change until the day the Earth implodes, 

whenever that is. 
51 

The question is how much of the climate change do you think is 

influenced by human behavior? 

Dr. HOLDREN. The climate change we are experiencing now, the 

climate change we have been experiencing for the last several decades is, according to the Academies of Science, according to the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to the view 

of most of the scientists who work on this, largely due to human 

activity. We are superimposing on a slow natural climate change 

a rapid human-induced climate change. 

Mr. POSEY. But as a percentage, like you anticipate the climate 

would change X amount in a year without the existence of humans 

on it, how much more do you think as a percentage of the change 

is influenced by human behavior? 

Dr. HOLDREN. The natural changes which we understand and 

which are underway on a long-term basis as we speak would, if 

they were the only influences, be cooling the planet rather than 

warming it. We would be in a long-term cooling trend as a result 

of the natural forces affecting climate that we understand. We are 

instead in a warming trend which suggests that human activity is 

overwhelmingly responsible for the difference. We would be having 

cooling based on natural forces. We are having warming. 

Mr. POSEY. I remember in the ’70s that was a threat. We are 

going to have a cooling that is going to eventually freeze the planet 

and that was the fear before Gore invented the Internet, or the 

other terms. 

I had read that during the period of the dinosaurs, the Earth’s 

temperature was 30 degrees warmer. Does that seem fathomable 

to you? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Thirty degrees sounds like a stretch to me but I 

will review the literature and get back to you. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Dr. Holdren, very much. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Posey. 

The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Kilmer, is recognized for 

his questions. 

Mr. BERA. Mr. Kilmer is not here so—— 

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Bera for his questions, the gentleman from 

California. 

Mr. BERA. Great, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr. 

Holdren, for being here. 

Obviously, we are in a very competitive global environment. We 

are in a very competitive global economy and, you know, that is not 

going to change in the near future. The one area that we do have 

a very competitive advantage over the rest of the world is in innovation. And clearly, we are still the most innovative country in the 

world; we are still the most innovative economy in the world, but 

we also recognize that we are starting to lose that advantage by 

not making the necessary investments to continue to move things 

forward. 

We also recognize that many of my colleagues have touched on 

the importance of training scientists and engineers to continue that 

economic advantage. Recently, I had a town hall at Intel with— 

Intel has a major presence in my district and I had the chance to 

meet with their leadership to talk about their future investments 
52 

but also talk about their challenges. And clearly, one of the challenges that their leadership brought up was the lack of availability 

of engineers and also the lack of availability of folks that know how 

to write code. On this Committee we have also had a hearing on 

that as well and it is—you know, we have the folks from code.org 

testify. 

There are two things that really jump out in my mind. One, they 

said, you know, it can’t happen at the college level. If we actually 

want to start our kids on coding and teach them those skills, it has 

to happen at the elementary school level. And, Dr. Holdren, I 

would be curious about your comments. Within the President’s 

budget, within the STEM budget, if we truly want to have our kids 

not just learn reading, writing, and arithmetic but also have them 

learn the language of the future, which, you know, increasingly appears to be coding, are there initiatives both to put that into part 

of the Common Core as well as one of the challenges that repeatedly comes up is the lack of educators who actually know how to 

teach that coding as well and if there is funding to train the trainers or train the teachers? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, I would make—sorry. I would make a couple 

of comments on that. One, there is certainly funding in the President’s budget for recruiting, preparing, and supporting more outstanding teachers in the STEM fields, which would include teachers who know how to code and who know how to teach coding. 

There is $40 million in the budget to support the goal of preparing 

100,000 excellent STEM teachers over the next decade. There is 

$20 million to launch a pilot STEM master teacher corps. 

In addition, I would note that we have a problem with inadequate exploitation of the talent pool. Women are drastically underrepresented in engineering and in computer science. African-Americans and Hispanics are drastically underrepresented in these 

fields, and we have a series of programs aimed at improving inclusion opportunities for girls and women in STEM fields, opportunities for other underrepresented groups, including minorities. We 

have had a lot of effort on that front just in the last couple months 

in connection with Black History Month and then Women’s History 

Month. And tapping a larger fraction of the Nation’s talent pool for 

these purposes is going to be a very important part of the solution. 

Mr. BERA. Dr. Holdren, I am glad that you brought that up. I 

think the statistic that was quoted to me last week was it is less 

than 20 percent of all of our engineers are women at this juncture, 

the ones that are graduating. If you were to recommend to—again 

I think this committee has a desire to train those folks to fill those 

future jobs. What recommendations would you have for us as a 

body in getting more girls to think about engineering futures and 

careers, as well as some of the minority groups that are certainly 

underrepresented? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, this will seem very self-serving but I would 

hope that the Committee will support the President’s budget in this 

domain because it has a lot of focus on those issues. 

Mr. BERA. Great. Last question. In my remaining time, the other 

area that I have focused on certainly is—as research budgets get 

tighter and so forth, one area that, you know, coming out of a background in higher education as an associate dean in a public univer-
53 

sity, research funding is becoming increasingly tight and we have 

talked a little bit about what we can do to enhance technology 

transfer and so forth. Do you have any recommendations that are 

both within the President’s budget to allow the private sector to 

come in at an earlier phase? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, the President has been a strong advocate 

from the outset of his Administration of strengthening partnerships 

between the private sector, the academic sector, and including the 

national laboratories in that. The National Network for Manufacturing Innovation is a good example of that. The Energy Hubs that 

the DOE has set up are great examples of that. They are bringing 

private sector enterprises together with folks from research universities and national labs to build partnerships to grease the tracks 

if you will between discovery in the laboratory and a productive application in society. And we want to continue to do that and there 

is substantial support for that in the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 

budget. 

Mr. BERA. Well, fabulous. We look forward to supporting those 

investments. 

I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Bera. 

The gentleman from New York, Mr. Collins, is recognized. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wasn’t attempting to go down this road, Dr. Holdren, but you 

stated really twice today that SOFIA would be a priority under 

OGSI with increased funding, certainly implying very directly that 

SOFIA is an Administration priority. I would like to direct your attention to statements by NASA that actually brags about cutting 

SOFIA’s budget to fund other programs. 

And I have here a letter, a document from OGSI that specifically states how they would spend the extra money, the $187 million. 

SOFIA is not listed there twice. I would like to ask you very directly why you have left this Committee with the impression, very 

direct impression, that SOFIA is a priority for the Administration 

where clearly it is not? 

Dr. HOLDREN. What I have said is SOFIA was ranked behind 

several other—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. So what you are admitting is it is not a priority. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —but—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Is it or is it not a priority? 

Dr. HOLDREN. In better financial times—— 

Mr. COLLINS. I am asking a direct question. 

Dr. HOLDREN. In better funding times—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Would you answer the question, sir? 

Dr. HOLDREN. —we would support SOFIA—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Is it a priority or not? 

Dr. HOLDREN. It is a lower priority than the things—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. Thank you, sir—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —that we are funding. 

Mr. COLLINS. —because you have implied it differently today and 

I don’t appreciate the implication. It is hypocritical and disingenuous to leave this committee with the impression SOFIA was a priority and it is clearly not. 
54 

So my next line of questions concerns security on Healthcare.gov. 

I Chair the Subcommittee on Healthcare and Technology in Small 

Business. We have had folks here on both sides of the aisle testify. 

Healthcare.gov was not secure when it was launched, is not secure 

today, and we have been attempting to get Mr. Todd Park to testify 

in front of this Committee on three occasions. The Administration 

has refused to make him available, and yet clearly Mr. Todd Park 

has had involvement in Healthcare.gov, and certainly with his 

background and his position now as an advisor to the President 

would and should have been involved with the security issues. 

So, you know, I guess, you know, I can read all the times Mr. 

Park has been involved, his involvement with CMS, his involvement with various meetings, his attendance at all these meetings 

and just have to ask you once again, in light of all the information 

and all the meetings and all the involvement of Mr. Park, how can 

your office state, which they have done just again recently with a 

letter to Chairman Smith, that none of your personnel have been 

involved with Healthcare.gov? Pretty bold statement. 

Dr. HOLDREN. We have not said that none of our personnel have 

been involved with Healthcare.gov. Mr. Park in particular was 

asked by the President—after the problems with Healthcare.gov 

materialized after its rollout, he was asked to become heavily involved. He has been very heavily involved in trying to address the 

problems of the website since that time. 

Mr. COLLINS. So you are implying—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. We never said no—— 

Mr. COLLINS. —he had no involvement prior to the launch? 

Dr. HOLDREN. We said his involvement has not been primarily 

associated with the security of the site. He is not a cybersecurity 

expert and the responsibility for the security of the site rested with 

CMS and with the interacting activities of CRS, the IRS, and the 

Social Security Administration. 

Mr. COLLINS. So you are suggesting that he was blindsided by 

the problems in this, had no knowledge of this as the advisor to 

the President, and all of a sudden when all of the problems, including experts who said this website should never have been launched, 

it was not secure the day it was launched, it is not secure today, 

Americans’ privacy is in danger, their identity theft is real, and so 

you are saying this Mr. Park—and that is why we want him to testify here. So let me just cut to the chase. Why won’t you allow him 

to testify? 

Dr. HOLDREN. It has been the practice of this Administration 

from the beginning that assistants to the President who are not 

Senate-confirmed do not testify. We have other people who are experts in cybersecurity who are willing to testify before this Committee on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Park is not an expert in the 

cybersecurity aspects of the Healthcare.gov website and he is a direct report to the President of the United States. I can’t compel 

him to come and testify. He doesn’t report to me. I am not sure 

what else you want for an answer. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, you know, much like SOFIA, I would like a 

more direct answer, not a dance like you have been dancing today. 

And the fact is the experts have testified that the website was not 

secure the day it was launched, it is not secure today, and yet, your 
55 

office and others within your office are now just claiming ignorance; you had no idea this was coming. You woke up one day, oh 

my goodness, it is not secure. I think you—again, today, I have 

been very disappointed in your testimony, disingenuous, not direct, 

and I think deliberately misleading to this Committee. 

And with that, Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Collins. 

The gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Esty, is recognized. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr. 

Holdren, for your many decades of service to this country and your 

willingness to serve in this challenging time. 

I wanted to briefly touch on three topics: first, STEM education, 

which I think you have now gathered is an extremely high priority 

of this Committee; secondly, the regional innovation initiatives; and 

third, climate change resiliency. 

I am very glad to hear that you mentioned the importance of including and reaching out to young women and to children of color. 

We cannot be competitive in the 21st century, globally competitive 

if we are leaving 60 percent of our workforce out of the STEM 

fields. So if you can elaborate on that aspect of how exactly you 

plan to do that. I would also recommend to you and ask you how 

you are reaching out to local stakeholders. 

I come from Connecticut. We have local companies like Stanley 

Black & Decker who are partnering with places like the Connecticut Science Center as well as our local community colleges, 

like Naugatuck Valley Community Colleges. They are working together with our local manufacturers to try to design some of these 

programs. I brought astronauts into the inner-city to meet with 

middle school students to inspire them about the opportunities that 

are available. 

Can you talk a little bit with us about what efforts, going forward, the Administration is going to utilize to engage these local 

stakeholders to make sure that our programs actually will work on 

the ground? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Sure. Let me mention a couple of elements of the 

Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal that address those issues. One is 

the STEM Innovation Networks. There is $110 million to help 

school districts individually and in consortia build partnerships, 

STEM Innovation Networks that would be partnerships with businesses, universities, museums, federal science agencies, and other 

entities to basically transform STEM teaching and learning and, I 

would add, inspiration by developing coordinated plans to do that 

in the STEM fields. 

There is $150 million in the budget in a program to redesign 

high schools to teach real-world skills basically relating to the earlier point that Congressman Kennedy was making as well to 

rethink the high school experience, challenging schools to scale up 

innovative models that provide rigorous and relevant education including for folks that are not going to go on to college but are going 

to go into high skills careers. 

The Network of Manufacturing Innovation Institutes will also be 

obviously a regionally focused set of efforts to link up schools, universities, national labs, businesses to the ends of that you are discussing. 
56 

Ms. ESTY. That is a great point to segue to the regional innovation centers, strong—I am strongly supportive of the efforts to expand those centers. I think they are going to be critically important 

to have this sort of innovation and linkage we need from basic research in our high-tech research universities, places like UConn 

whose medical center is in my district, Yale, which is right nearby, 

with our local communities, community colleges, high schools, elementary schools—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. Um-hum. 

Ms. ESTY. —as well, and our manufacturers. So I am strongly 

supportive of efforts to expand those efforts. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Right. 

Ms. ESTY. And one thing I would like to flag that we have 

learned since this is a real passion of mine and very important to 

my district, it is going to be really important to engage the private 

sector in providing internship possibilities for students. Many of 

the—and this goes back to the inner cities in part and to girls. 

They need to have the opportunity to work and see in environments where they are actually doing this during the summer in a 

workplace setting where they understand the soft side skills as 

well as the culture, and that is critically important to inspire them 

and encourage them to pursue these fields, which are often very 

tough. So I just want to make a plug for that. 

Coming from the Northeast, living through this extremely challenging last couple of years, I would like quickly with the time I 

have remaining your thoughts about the climate resiliency—climate change resiliency theme in the budget through NOAA and 

EPA about the development of a climate change resilience toolkit 

and web portal? And how will improved access for this data help 

protect our communities on the impacts of climate change? And it 

seems more focused on attention to understanding and mitigating 

regional impacts. And can you sort of describe the reason to take 

that approach? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Okay. And very quickly, before I answer the last 

question, I do want to mention that the America COMPETES Act 

in 2010 authorized a number of Department of Commerce programs focused on regional innovation, and the President has proposed those. The Congress has funded them. They have created a 

variety of regional innovation clusters and partnerships of the sorts 

I described, so I think that is something we remain committed to 

in partnership with the Congress. 

We just rolled out last week the first tranche of the Climate Data 

Initiative, which is one of the elements of the President’s Climate 

Action Plan. That Climate Data Initiative is being led by NOAA 

and NASA but has participation from a wide variety of other departments and agencies. The aim of it is to provide data that is 

transparent and informative and rigorous that local and regional 

decision-makers, communities, businesses, farmers, fishermen, individual citizens can use to better anticipate what climate change 

will be doing in their regions or their localities and to be better 

able to take steps to prepare for it and to minimize the damages 

that result from it. 

The first focus of the Climate Data Initiative is on sea level rise 

and coastal flooding. The next phase will be looking at agriculture. 
57 

The phase after that I think will be looking at impacts on health. 

It will be followed by a resilience toolkit that provides a variety of 

applications which will make it easier for people to make use of 

these data, understanding what they mean, and applying them to 

their local needs. 

Climate change obviously is a problem that is global in its origins 

and in its dynamics but its effects are local, and that is why the 

focus of the Climate Data Initiative and the whole resilience and 

preparedness approach is local and regional, because climate 

change is not uniform and people in different regions and localities 

need to be prepared for what is going to happen there. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you. And I appreciate your indulgence, Mr. 

Chairman, in letting him finish the answer to that question. Thank 

you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Esty. 

The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Schweikert, is recognized. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Professor, I have got to tell you, out of all the positions in government, you actually I think may have one of the most interesting 

jobs but you also have an interesting effect on what the future, 

long after you and I are probably gone, will have. 

I will do my best here to sort of have a linear thought in these 

questions. The—in your discussions with the Administration—and 

the first one I am going to ask you about is the ICANN decision 

recently. I am a great believer that sort of egalitarian access, you 

know, crowdsourcing of information and data being available is 

crucially important and it is also sort of the ultimate vetting of 

what is out there in science. Has there been any discussion of protocols of what will be done to make sure that if we have given up 

dominance of sort of internet policy, that that dominance won’t be 

taken by whether it be the U.N. where the majority of member 

states are not, you know, free democracies, how do we make sure 

that the world has sort of an open free speech environment on the 

internet? 

Dr. HOLDREN. There has of course been discussion of that. It is 

a focus of ours. We are certainly not giving up influence and it is 

not our intention to allow the internet to go in a direction that imperils free speech. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. One of my real concerns here is that, you 

know, as Americans we are all free speech advocates but I believe 

the head administrator of ICANN now has often spoken that he 

would like a U.N. body. Well, you and I know the majority of member states in the U.N. aren’t anywhere near where we are culturally in the protection of free exchange of speech. So it is just— 

it is a real concern. Has this at least hit a high level of discussion? 

Dr. HOLDREN. It has. We are concerned about it, too, and we are 

determined to hold the line. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Why would we have made sort of the statement that we are going to walk away from sort of our managerial 

control until that sort of underlying agreement was designed? 

Dr. HOLDREN. This is not my field of expertise and I am not sufficiently familiar with the arguments that were gone through. I 

know they were intensive. As in many other domains, this is an 

area where globalization has been going on and it is sometimes dif-
58 

ficult to retain a position of absolute dominance over time when 

that is happening. But I would be happy to get back to you—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. It is just—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —with more information about that process. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. —as you know, for many of us who are, you 

know, free speech advocates, we always have a concern that we are 

paying for NSA sin in perception, so just where that may be. 

Science advisory body, the advice, the information that is often 

given to agencies that are asking for direction and modeling, this 

Committee is dominant in the statute that actually creates. What 

do you think your obligations are or the advisory board—or body’s 

obligation is to respond to our inquiries? Because my fear is there 

is advice being given to agencies and we say tell us—you share 

with us the direction you are going there and we get stonewalled. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, I am not sure what in particular you are referring to. My office—the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is of course responsible for providing above all science 

and technology advice to the President and his other senior advisers—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well, but if—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —but I testify regularly before Congress and our 

reports, which embody the bulk of our advice, are available on our 

website—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well, but no. We had already had several occasions on this Committee where we have reached out to—is it 

ERDDA—and said share with us the advice you are giving to certain agencies and we don’t get it back. 

And let me sort of do a hop-skip and we can—and I will even follow up with this one in writing. Congressman Neugebauer was 

asking a question about within the budget line, the study of hydraulic fracturing horizontal drilling, correct? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Yes, he was asking. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And within that, part of his question he was 

trying to ask is you have designed budget line items but yet you 

apparently haven’t actually designed what the study is going to 

look like. 

Dr. HOLDREN. Oh, the study is underway. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Then when we had asked for how are you 

doing your sample set, are you reviewing the literature? Are you 

sending people out to do actual, you know, hard samples? How 

come we are having trouble getting that information delivered to 

us? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I had not been aware that you were having trouble 

but if you direct that inquiry to me, I will provide you with answers. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. So could you at least commit to myself or more 

importantly the Chairman, could we have the design plan? I have 

a fixation on baseline data sampling because I believe it often ends 

up—you know, we often talk about the modeling that you and I 

know your first sin is always—or your first cornerstone is in how 

you choose to collect the data. So if you would be willing to provide 

us a plan on how the study is built and obviously that would be 

reflected in the budget request, that will go a long way for confidence in this Committee. 
59 

Dr. HOLDREN. Good. I will try to do that. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Last two things, and I know I am way over 

time, there is some complement out there, but I also think we need 

to make sure our friends on both sides understand some of the 

groups you oversee have protocols on blinding personal data. We do 

it in the census; we do it in medical research. And so there is sort 

of a national standard for doing that. I do a sample set. I have individual personal data. If that data is going to be made public, you 

have a way of doing placeholders, correct? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Correct. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. So—because we had sort of a bizarre conversation in this Committee about six weeks ago where there seemed to 

be a misunderstanding that there is—it is standard protocol on 

how to blind individual data. 

The last thing, do—who in your organization sort of watches 

peer-review publications because I now have a binder on my desk 

in my office now of articles where we are realizing how much—I 

am uncomfortable using the word fraud but how many outliers we 

are finding where really bad data is being used in peer-reviewed 

studies, publications, grants, and how do we fix that? And I am a 

believer that, you know, the crowd putting things out in the internet and having lots of voices talk about it will help us find where 

we are funding studies that the underlying data sets either were 

grossly misinterpreted or actually outright fraud. 

Dr. HOLDREN. This is a really important issue. We devoted a 

public session of the last meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to it. We invited the editors-inchief of both Nature and Science, the two most important science 

journals in the world, plus a number of experts on data and the 

pitfalls that occur. Within my organization, the Associate Director 

for Science currently awaiting confirmation is the person who has 

the most direct oversight of that set of issues, but we are concerned 

about it. We are interested in it— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Professor—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. —and we will look at it. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I am elated to hear that it is—because as you 

know, so often we base public policy and spending and then later 

find out there was something horribly wrong in that model or the 

underlying samples or just outright fraud to get the grant. 

Can I beg of you, send me a note—send me something in writing 

of who I should reach out to because I—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. Sure. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. —actually have a powerful interest in this—— 

Dr. HOLDREN. Yes. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. —because of my concern that resources may be 

going askew because of bad acts. 

Dr. HOLDREN. I would be happy to respond to you—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And with that, I know I am way over time. 

Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Schweikert. 

The gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Holdren, welcome back. Thank you so much for your testimony and for your work. I want to start by saying I am glad to 
60 

see the Administration acknowledged the importance of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. That was several companies in Oregon who have benefited from the MEP program so— 

through NIST. Thank you very much. 

I am also encouraged to see the Administration focusing resources on innovative energy projects at ARPA–E, specifically the 

potential of battery technology. I recently spoke with someone from 

a utility in Oregon, Portland General Electric, and they recently installed a 5 megawatt lithium ion battery-powered energy storage 

facility. It happens to be on top of the Kettle brand facility rooftop, 

so we can think about that whenever we are eating Kettle chips. 

So that is in Salem, Oregon, and it is partially funded by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration 

Project, but they have learned an immense amount about how efficient battery technology can help the grid integrate renewable energy resources, so more R&D in battery technology I see as a winwin. Really a common goal and what we have been talking about 

throughout this hearing and all the disciplines is how we keep our 

country competitive, how do we have an innovative workforce. 

I want to mention the Innovation Corps program with NSF to 

commercialize university research, which you mentioned in your 

testimony. I was wondering how that program will be structured 

and I encourage you to look at the Oregon ONAMI, Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute. They are doing great work 

with commercialization of materials science and systems technology. 

I want to follow up on the STEM education discussion as well. 

You referenced the 21st century community learning centers, a way 

to bring STEM education outside the traditional school day. I recently met with students at the Forest Grove, Oregon, high school 

who are part of the 4–H Tech Wizards afterschool program. That 

is a great opportunity for students to engage outside of the school 

day. 

And on that note, we have had great discussion already, Dr. Bera 

and Representative Kennedy, and Representative Hultgren mentioned the FIRST robotics program. Hands-on learning is so important. 

And I wanted to follow up on that. You may recall I am the CoChair of the bipartisan STEAM Caucus, integrating arts and design broadly defined into STEM learning. There is plenty of research to show that educating and exercising the right brain helps 

to educate creative and innovative students who become innovators 

and entrepreneurs, and simply put, we want people who cannot 

just answer questions but also know what questions to ask. 

So you talked about the updates to the STEM reorganization 

plan for the Fiscal Year budget, and on the Hill we have witnessed 

a growing consensus about how do we expand STEM education. 

You mentioned reaching out to underrepresented populations. So 

can you expand on whether that plan acknowledges the benefit of 

including alternative approaches to STEM education? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, first of all, I commend your interest in the 

STEAM approach and the progress being made with it. I think it 

is important to remember the relevance of the humanities and the 

arts as we think about our education portfolio overall. And I think 
61 

some of the kinds of activities that are in the various programs listed under STEM undoubtedly are including these other dimensions 

as well. I think many of the outreach and the community-based 

programs are doing that, so basically, I could only agree with your 

comments. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Well, thank you. The more we learn about the 

parallels between the science and art—and the last time I asked 

this question I mentioned a study that was done about the number 

of Nobel laureates in sciences who also engage in arts and crafts 

is phenomenal and they recommend that students studying in the 

STEM disciplines also have art and crafts experience. It really is 

hands-on learning but again leads to that creativity and innovation 

that we want in our workforce. 

And could you follow up a little bit about the Innovation Corps 

and how that program will be structured through NSF to help commercialize research? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, that is a program that has already been 

going on in NSF, and my understanding is that it is already successful in basically including, in a number of the activities that 

NSF funds, training on how to be an entrepreneur, how to translate discoveries in the laboratory into practical applications that 

can become the basis of businesses and social good. So I think it 

is a great program. I think it is working and we should continue 

to support it. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much. My time is expired. I yield 

back. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici, appreciate that. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Dr. 

Holdren. Appreciate you being back again. 

I don’t remember if it was Mark Twain or Will Rogers or Ambrose Bierce or somebody like that that said all scientists are only 

sure about one thing and that is that all scientists before that were 

wrong. Have you ever heard that comment? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I have heard of versions of it. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Well, who was it that said that? No idea. 

So when you guys do your research you start with the scientific— 

what do they call it—postulate or theory and you work from that 

direction forward, is that right? 

Dr. HOLDREN. It depends on what sort of science that you are 

talking about, but the notion of posing a hypothesis and then trying to determine whether it is right is one of the tried-and-true approaches in science, yes. 

Mr. WEBER. So I am just wondering how that related to like, for 

example, global warming and eventually global cooling? And I may 

want to get your cell phone number because if we do go through 

a couple cycles, global warming and then back to global cooling, I 

will need to know when to buy my long coat on sale. So I just don’t 

know how you all prove those hypotheses going back 50, 100, you 

know, what you might say is thousands of if not even millions of 

years and how you postulate those forward. But we will get into 

that in a little bit. 
62 

The Keystone pipeline I am very, very interested in because it 

comes into my district, delivers 840,000 barrels of oil a day. It will 

help get us off oil from the Middle East or Venezuela and produce 

jobs over here. And the State Department actually came out with 

a finding and said—it was one of those scientific hopefully findings 

I guess—that ‘‘the approval or denial of any one crude oil transport 

project, including the proposed project, is unlikely to significantly 

impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States.’’ Do 

you agree with that statement from the State Department? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, I would say, number one, I have not done 

a review—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —at this point of the State Department’s analysis 

of that—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —and not having looked at the analysis, I don’t 

want to say whether I agree with it or not—— 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Dr. HOLDREN. —but it is a respectable position. There are others. 

Mr. WEBER. So they are from the government and they are here 

to help. 

So looking at your budget as you have put it forward in the different areas there is one, like Congressman Neugebauer said, on 

fracking where that study has never been done. Do you know if 

there is any plans—in Texas—one of my other colleagues—and 

maybe it was Congressman Neugebauer—refer to the fact that we 

have been in fracking since 1945, which if my high school math 

holds up would be 65 years. 

Do you all ever think about perhaps getting with the agencies in 

Texas that actually have that experience and that deal with it 

every day? And in fact in Texas we would say we have been doing 

it longer than anybody else. Any plans to get with the TCEQ and 

those that have experience? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I suspect that that outreach has happened as part 

of the study—— 

Mr. WEBER. Could that help your budget—would that help your 

budget numbers go down because you could rely on their experience? 

Dr. HOLDREN. I suspect the budget numbers take into account 

the fact that we have been reaching out to the constituencies that 

do this. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Do you think that it is possible that if we had 

more manufacturing jobs based on this energy renaissance that we 

are about to experience if the government will get out of the way— 

that if we had more manufacturing jobs, that we could take more 

Americans off of the unemployment rolls and welfare so to speak 

and that we could actually get more taxpayers on the rolls and 

then we could actually have more money for the budget to do the 

very thing you want to do, which would be more research and to 

put more money into an all-of-the-above energy program? Does that 

make sense to you? 
63 

Dr. HOLDREN. Absolutely it makes sense and the Administration 

is all in favor of increasing the number of manufacturing jobs, and 

we have been trying to do that in a number of ways. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, they keep saying that, but looking at the energy renaissance and the war on coal plants and the—I mean I 

don’t think that is deniable, war on coal plants and war on fossil 

fuels and the dragging of the Keystone pipeline permit, which has 

been now five years, five years. 

Do you have any plans—do you weigh in with the President? Do 

you say, Mr. President, in our—from our vantage point if you 

would approve the permit, as the State Department said, using the 

State Department language—it was an amendment I got on a bill 

in the—through the House taking the permitting process away 

from the President, do you have any—can you say to the President, 

Mr. President, the State Department is saying it is a go. What is 

the holdup? 

Dr. HOLDREN. As I understand it, the ball on that issue is still 

in the State Department’s court. That was an analysis. The Secretary of State has not made a national interest determination at 

this point and so we are awaiting that. 

Mr. WEBER. But you are the scientist. You have the budget—you 

are putting together the budget. You want more research, you want 

more money to do these kinds of things, and if we can get more 

taxpayers, we can increase the budget, right? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Absolutely. As I have said, we are in favor of increasing manufacturing jobs in this country and it would bring 

many benefits. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, I hope when you leave here you will call the 

President and tell him you and I had this conversation and I am 

recommending approval of the Keystone pipeline. 

Thank you, Dr. Holdren. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Weber. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell, is recognized. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr. 

Holdren. 

And, Dr. Holdren, I have to say I am disappointed that many of 

my colleagues across the aisle have used this hearing, titled key 

issues for the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 research and development budget, to re-litigate whether climate change is happening 

and whether it is manmade, and at this rate, frankly, I have to say 

you should be prepared to address whether the Earth is round or 

flat; that might come up, or whether indeed gravity is happening. 

You never know what can fly at you from what we have seen already. 

And I have to say that with 97 percent of the scientists stating, 

and as you pointed out that that is an approximation based on statistics, that climate change is manmade, I am encouraged to see 

that some of my colleagues across the aisle have been a voice for 

the minority, three percent of scientists today. 

This is encouraging for other minorities that my colleagues 

across the aisle have not helped out, including immigrants who are 

waiting for comprehensive immigration reform, minorities like 

women who have not received equal pay for equal work, minorities 

who are affected by the Voting Rights Act where action has not 
64 

taken, as well as gay and lesbian minorities who have been oppressed by some of the policies that my colleagues across the aisle 

have put in place. 

So the colleagues who are standing up for the three percent scientists who do not believe in climate change, I am encouraged that 

they are now a voice for the minority. 

But you are here to discuss the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 

budget, and I have a question first about the National Ignition Facility, which is in my district in Livermore, California. And I want 

to know, in light of the recent alpha heating phenomenon that occurred there, do you still believe that that fusion project is near the 

goal line and that ignition is near achievement and what that 

means for future rounds of funding? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Well, first of all, I applaud the advances that have 

been made at NIF over the past year. I think they are important. 

I think it is still quite some distance from the finish line. When you 

look at the energetics every step of the way, there is considerably 

more progress that needs to be made before we can say we actually 

have ignition, and there would be more progress beyond that that 

would be needed to convert that achievement into a workable fusion reactor. But the project is well worth pursuing. The 329 million in the budget for pursuing it should enable a good deal of further progress and I look forward to seeing that. 

Mr. SWALWELL. I also wanted to talk a little bit about the inertial fusion research that is in the budget, and particularly that the 

National Ignition Facility and the Z Pulsed Power Facility have 

enough technical promise to justify dedicated federal support for inertial fusion R&D relevant to energy, not just weapons reliability, 

as Ms. Lofgren pointed out. 

However, there is currently no program in the federal government which directly officially supports inertial fusion research and 

technology developments activity for energy production purposes. 

Rather, the Administration is proposing to eliminate all of the activities in the Fusion Energy Sciences program that could make important contributions to fusion research, including an experiment 

at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that is only beginning 

to operate this year. 

So my question is do you believe that the Department should address the findings of this National Academies report, which found 

that these concepts have technical promise and at least find a way 

to allow strong merit-reviewed proposal for inertial fusion energy 

research to be eligible for federal support? 

Dr. HOLDREN. Let me make a couple of quick comments. We of 

course are aware of the National Academies report. We recognize 

the progress that has been made in inertial confinement fusion in 

a number of different ways, with the lasers, with pulse power, with 

ion beams. Those approaches of course have not yet demonstrated 

the level of performance that would be needed to convert them into 

an energy source. They are in fact still well short of the performance of the magnetic confinement approach, which is being pursued 

in parallel. 

Under the budget restraints we face, we think the most important thing to continue funding in the inertial confinement space is 

the NIF and its progression toward ignition. 
65 

The experiment you mentioned at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab is a small one completed at a cost of about $11 million. It began operating two years ago but it has fallen far short of its design specifications and so it is hard to keep it near the top of the priority 

list given the tight budget and the performance shortfalls in that 

particular device. 

Mr. SWALWELL. Thank you, Dr. Holdren. Thank you for your 

service to our country, for your belief in science, and for now knowing what to be better prepared to discuss next time you come back, 

including whether gravity is really occurring and whether our 

Earth is flat or round. 

Thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Swalwell. 

Dr. Holdren, thank you for your testimony today. We appreciate 

that very much. 

Our record will stay open for a couple of weeks in case Members 

have additional questions to submit. And with that, we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(67) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
68 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Holdren 
69 
70 
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Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
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Æ