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74–056PDF 2012

NSF MAJOR MULTI–USER RESEARCH 

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT: 

ENSURING FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY AND 

ACCOUNTABILITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE 

EDUCATION 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2012 

Serial No. 112–76 

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. RALPH M. HALL, Texas, Chair 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

SANDY ADAMS, Florida 

BENJAMIN QUAYLE, Arizona 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

DAN BENISHEK, Michigan 

VACANCY 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

BEN R. LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL D. TONKO, New York 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

VACANCY 

VACANCY 

VACANCY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

HON. MO BROOKS, Alabama, Chair 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

BENJAMIN QUAYLE, Arizona 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

DAN BENISHEK, Michigan 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan 

PAUL D. TONKO, New York 

TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 

Page 

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

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

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Mo Brooks, Chairman, Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 16 

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

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Ethan J. Schreier, President, Associated Universities, Inc. 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 19 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 22 

Dr. William S. Smith, Jr., President, Association of Universities for Research 

in Astronomy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 36 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 38 

Dr. David Divins, Vice President and Director, Ocean Drilling Programs, 

Consortium for Ocean Leadership, Inc. 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 57 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 59 

Dr. Gregory S. Boebinger, Director, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory 

and Professor of Physics, Florida State University and University of Florida 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 68 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 70 

Dr. Sol Michael Gruner, Director, Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source 

and The John L. Wetherill Professor of Physics, Cornell University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 87 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 89 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Ethan J. Schreier, President, Associated Universities, Inc. .......................... 112 

Dr. William S. Smith, Jr., President, Association of Universities for Research 

in Astronomy ........................................................................................................ 116 

Dr. David Divins, Vice President and Director, Ocean Drilling Programs, 

Consortium for Ocean Leadership, Inc. .............................................................. 120 

Dr. Gregory S. Boebinger, Director, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory 

and Professor of Physics, Florida State University and University of Florida .......................................................................................................................... 122 

Dr. Sol Michael Gruner, Director, Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source 

and The John L. Wetherill Professor of Physics, Cornell University .............. 127 

(1) 

NSF MAJOR MULTI–USER RESEARCH 

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT: 

ENSURING FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY 

AND ACCOUNTABILITY 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2012 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mo Brooks 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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Chairman BROOKS. The Subcommittee on Research and Science 

Education will come to order. 

Good morning. Welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘NSF Major 

Multi-User Research Facilities Management: Ensuring Fiscal Responsibility and Accountability.’’ The purpose of today’s hearing is 

to examine the planning, management, operations and stewardship 

of major multi-user research facilities funded through the National 

Science Foundation. I now recognize myself for five minutes for an 

opening statement. 

We all are pleased to have all of our witnesses joining us this 

morning to continue our discussion concerning oversight of the 

NSF’s multi-user equipment and facilities. I look to my colleague, 

Mr. Lipinski, and my fellow Subcommittee members on both sides 

of the aisle to work with us to continue to ensure the Subcommittee performs its legislative, oversight and investigative duties with due diligence on matters within its jurisdiction throughout the 112th Congress and, as always, appreciate their valued experience and insights. 

As mentioned in our last hearing, investments in major multiuser research facilities comprise approximately 15 percent of the 

National Science Foundation’s portfolio. The total fiscal year 2013 

National Science Foundation budget request for major multi-user 

research facilities is $1.1 billion. Of that amount, $196 million is 

requested for the major research equipment and facilities construction line item and $923 million is requested for the Research and 

Related Activities line item. We looked primarily at the major research equipment and facilities construction account in our last 

hearing. This hearing will focus more on the Research and Related 

Activities funding side as those funds support the operations and 

maintenance of existing facilities, Federally Funded Research and 

Development Centers, and planning and development activities. 

Major multi-user facilities can include telescopes, accelerators, 

distributed instrumentation networks and arrays, and research 

vessels. This research infrastructure has a significant impact on 

large segments of the science and engineering population. We in 

Congress need to ensure the planning, operations, management 

and overall stewardship of these projects is being carried out responsibly and in the best interest of the American taxpayer. 

The National Science Board and National Science Foundation are 

currently involved in examining the process of recompetition for 

these major multi-user facilities in order to ‘‘assure the best use of 

National Science Foundation funds for supporting research and 

education.’’ Our hearing today will look at the way these facilities 

are run and managed as well as the issue of recompetition. 

I am eager to hear more about how these important facilities are 

managed, including recompetition practices, and to discuss how we 

in Congress can continue to support these worthwhile endeavors 

while ensuring financial and fiscal responsibility. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brooks follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MO BROOKS

Good morning and welcome. We are pleased to have all of our witnesses joining 

us this morning to continue our discussion concerning oversight of NSF’s multi-user 

equipment and facilities. I look to my colleague, Mr. Lipinski, and my fellow Sub-
17 

committee members on both sides of the aisle to work with me continue to ensure 

the Subcommittee performs its legislative, oversight, and investigative duties with 

due diligence on matters within its jurisdiction throughout the 112th Congress and, 

as always, appreciate their valued experience and insights. 

As mentioned in our last hearing, investments in major multi-user research facilities comprise approximately 15 percent of NSF’s portfolio. The total FY13 NSF 

budget request for major multi-user research facilities is $1.1 billion. Of that 

amount, $196 million is requested for the MREFC line item and $923 million is requested for the Research and Related Activities (RRA) line item. We looked primarily at the MREFC account in our last hearing. This hearing will focus more on 

the RRA funding side as those funds support the operations and maintenance of existing facilities, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), 

and planning and development activities. 

Major multi-user facilities can include telescopes, accelerators, distributed instrumentation networks and arrays, and research vessels. This research infrastructure 

has a significant impact on large segments of the science and engineering population. We in Congress need to ensure the planning, operations, management and 

overall stewardship of these projects is being carried out responsibly and in the best 

interest of the American taxpayer. 

The National Science Board and NSF are currently involved in examining the 

process of recompetition for these major multi-user facilities in order to ‘‘assure the 

best use of NSF funds for supporting research and education.’’ Our hearing today 

will look at the way these facilities are run and managed as well as the issue of 

recompetition. 

I am eager to hear more about how these important facilities are managed, including recompetition practices, and to discuss how we in Congress can continue to 

support these worthwhile endeavors while ensuring fiscal responsibility. 

Chairman BROOKS. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lipinski for an 

opening statement. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Chairman Brooks. 

As I stated at last month’s hearing on NSF’s MREFC account, 

how we prioritize, fund, manage and oversee major research facilities, and also how we balance facility funding with research grant 

funding, are all important subjects for oversight by our subcommittee. So I am pleased we are having this series of hearings. 

At last month’s hearing we had a very interesting discussion 

about facility planning and construction, including how facility 

managers calculate and manage contingency budgets and how NSF 

oversees the whole process. So today’s hearing begins where the 

last one left off. 

My understanding is that this hearing is not the result of any 

specific oversight concern, but rather a broad examination of the 

status of NSF’s policies for and oversight of the management and 

operations of large facilities. It has been about ten years since the 

Subcommittee last formally reviewed NSF’s facilities policies, and 

much has changed in the interim. Most importantly, I wasn’t on 

the Subcommittee or even in Congress ten years ago, and neither 

was the chairman. So I appreciate the effort by the chairman to 

educate Subcommittee members on where things stand so that we 

will be better equipped to anticipate and mitigate any problems in 

the future. 

To that end, the policy topic today that is of particular interest 

to me is recompetition of management contracts. In 2008, the National Science Board strongly endorsed a recompetition policy for 

major facility awards. How this is to be implemented across the full 

spectrum of facility types and management structures remains unresolved. How would recompetition work for the MagLab or 

CHESS, for example, which physically sit on land owned by the respective universities that manage them? How would recompetition 
18 

work for any of the facilities with significant international partnerships? 

I would also like to discuss the process for decommissioning user 

facilities. That includes how a decision to decommission a facility 

is made and how decommissioning costs are allocated. Without an 

agency or Board witness present, I don’t think we can get into a 

full discussion of recompetition or decommissioning policy this 

morning but I certainly would be interested to hear this panel’s 

perspectives on these issues so that we can further pursue it with 

the agency itself. 

With that, I look forward to hearing about each of your respective facilities, both the exciting science you are doing and your 

stewardship of the taxpayer dollars that support these facilities. 

With that, I will yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER DANIEL LIPINSKI

Thank you Chairman Brooks. As I stated at last month’s hearing on NSF’s 

MREFC Account, how we prioritize, fund, manage, and oversee major research facilities, and also how we balance facility funding with research grant funding, are 

all important subjects for oversight by our subcommittee. So I am pleased we are 

having this series of hearings. 

At last month’s hearing we had a very interesting discussion about facility planning and construction, including how facility managers calculate and manage contingency budgets and how NSF oversees the whole process. Today’s hearing begins 

where the last one left off. 

My understanding is that this hearing is not the result of any specific oversight 

concern, but rather a broad examination of the status of NSF’s policies for and oversight of the management and operations of large facilities. It has been about 10 

years since the subcommittee last formally reviewed NSF’s facilities policies, and 

much has changed in the interim; most importantly, I wasn’t here on this subcommittee or even in Congress 10 years ago, and neither was the Chairman. I appreciate this effort by the chairman to educate Subcommittee members on where 

things stand so that we will be better equipped to anticipate and mitigate any problems in the future. 

To that end, the policy topic today that is of particular interest to me is recompetition of management contracts. In 2008 the National Science Board strongly endorsed a recompetition policy for major facility awards. How this is to be implemented across the full spectrum of facility types and management structures remains unresolved. How would recompetition work for the MagLab or CHESS, for 

example, which physically sit on land owned by the respective universities that 

manage them? How would recompetition work for any of the facilities with significant international partnership? 

I would also like to discuss the process for decommissioning user facilities. That 

includes how a decision to decommission a facility is made and how decommissioning costs are allocated. Without an agency or Board witness present, I don’t 

think we can get into a full discussion of recompetition or decommissioning policy 

this morning. But I certainly would be interested to hear this panel’s perspectives 

on these issues so that we can further pursue it with the agency itself. 

With that, I look forward to hearing about each of your respective facilities—both 

the exciting science you are doing and your stewardship of the taxpayer dollars that 

support these facilities. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. 

If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 

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

point. 

At this time I would like to introduce our witness panel for today’s hearing. Our first witness will be Dr. Ethan J. Schreier, 

President of the Associated Universities, Inc. Associated Univer-
19 

sities, Inc. manages the National Radio Astronomy Observatory for 

the National Science Foundation and is the North American Executive for the international Atacama Large Millimeter Array under 

construction in northern Chile. 

Our second witness is Dr. William S. Smith, Jr., President of the 

Association of Universities for Research and Astronomy. At the Association of Universities for Research and Astronomy, Dr. Smith 

acts as the Chief Executive Officer and sets the overall direction 

and policy for the Space Telescope Science Institute, the International Gemini Program, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and the National Solar Observatory. 

Our third witness is Dr. David Divins. He is the Vice President 

and Director of the Ocean Drilling Programs at the Consortium for 

Ocean Leadership, Inc. Dr. Divins serves as the Program Director 

and Principal Investigator of the System Integration Contract for 

the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. 

Our fourth witness is Dr. Gregory S. Boebinger, the Director of 

the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Professor of 

Physics at Florida State University and the University of Florida. 

Dr. Boebinger is responsible for all three campuses of the National 

High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the headquarters at Florida State 

University, the Pulse Magnet Laboratory at Los Alamos National 

Laboratory, and the Ultra Low Temperature and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Laboratories at the University of Florida. 

Our final witness is Dr. Sol Michael Gruner, the Director of the 

Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source and the John L. Wetherill 

Professor of Physics at Cornell University. In 1997, Dr. Gruner 

joined Cornell University as Director and Principal Investigator of 

the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source Facility and as a Faculty Member in the physics department and the Laboratory of Applied and Solid State Research. 

As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited to 

five minutes each after which the Members of the Committee will 

have five minutes each to ask questions. Given our time availability and our having at this point three Congressmen, while we 

prefer that you limit yourself to five minutes, you will be given a 

little bit of latitude as will the Congressmen as they ask questions. 

So with that, I now recognize our first witness, Dr. Ethan 

Schreier. Dr. Schreier, you are recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ETHAN J. SCHREIER, 

PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES, INC. 

Dr. SCHREIER. Thank you, Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member 

Lipinski and distinguished Members. Thank you for this opportunity. I am Ethan Schreier, President of AUI, a nonprofit research 

management corporation that operates the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, NRAO, under cooperative agreement with NSF. 

AUI’s stated mission is to promote education, discovery and innovation by uniting resources of universities, research organizations 

and the government, and building and operating forefront multiuser scientific facilities. We have been in operation since 1946. 

NRAO provides transformational scientific capabilities in radio 

astronomy that enable astronomers to answer fundamental questions about the universe. Radio astronomy has opened new vistas 
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into the universe and uncovering the birthplace of stars and planets, studying super-massive black holes, neutron stars, gravitational waves and the remnant heat of the Big Bang. 

AUI created NRAO over 50 years ago at the request of the university research community. NRAO has been the world’s premier 

radio astronomy observatory ever since. Under AUI stewardship, 

NRAO has built and operated the most advanced radio telescopes 

in the world, developed state-of-the-art technology, brought benefits 

to the public, promoting, science, technology, engineering and math 

education. 

NRAO currently operates four unique world-leading telescopes: 

the iconic Very Large Array in New Mexico, the very large Green 

Bank Telescope in West Virginia, the transcontinental Very Long 

Baseline Array, which has ten dishes spread over 5,000 miles 

across the United States from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii, and of 

course, the new international Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, ALMA, in Chile at an altitude of 16,000 feet for which 

AUI is the North American lead. 

AUI closely manages NRAO with very active goverance, with 

continuing technical, programmatic, fiscal review and oversight, 

and close communication with both NSF and with the research 

community. Public support for fundamental research has consistently resulted in very practical benefits as well for the Nation. For 

example, NRAO pioneered technology that was later adopted for 

medical imaging, and technology used in cell phones. AUI and 

NRAO also actively leverage radio astronomy investments to promote STEM education, as I mentioned, with proven outreach and 

dissemination activities across the country. For example, in the 

NSF-funded Pulse Search Collaboratory, high school students and, 

for that matter, their teachers, search for pulsars using NRAO data 

and then they can publish their discoveries with active astronomers. Surveys have shown that female students, in particular, gain 

substantial confidence in math and science after participating. In 

programs we have our student interns learn by working at NRAO 

in engineering as well as science. 

The current fiscal environment presents a unique challenge to 

AUI in maintaining its status as the world’s forefront radio observatory. We may, for the first time in our history, be forced to close 

a telescope that is still a forefront observatory and one of the leading observatories of the world. Previously, NRAO would retire telescopes only after they became obsolete. This chart shows that we 

have retired seven. None of NRAO’s first-generation telescopes dating back to the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s are still in operation. 

To protect the operation of our current world-leading facilities, 

we are actively continuing to seek external partners and leverage 

their contributions to maintain leadership, U.S. leadership. U.S. 

leadership and our core competence in radio astronomy, which we 

do have, is also threatened by the potential spilt of domestic NRAO 

facilities and ALMA. 

The National Science Board issued a resolution urging recompetition of ALMA separately from the rest of NRAO when the cooperative agreement with NSF is competed next year. Separating ALMA 

from NRAO would put the success of ALMA at great risk, compromising three decades of work by experienced and expert NRAO 
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staff in the planning of ALMA, the design, the construction, and 

the operation, working in close collaboration with the astronomy 

community and our foreign partners. It would result in an enormous loss of efficiency and expertise, increase complexity and cost, 

and put U.S. scientists at a disadvantage in the international 

ALMA partnership in using the facility. AUI sees its role as ensuring that U.S. research has reaped the benefits of the large U.S. investment in ALMA, the world’s newest and most transformational 

radio facility. 

AUI’s NRAO has been a pioneer in radio astronomy for 56 years 

now. The experience gained in building and operating the world’s 

leading radio facilities is guiding our way forward in these rather 

difficult fiscal times. Our goal is to keep the United States in the 

lead of this key scientific discipline and to continue unlocking the 

secrets of the universe. 

Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today. 

I have provided additional details and recommendations in my 

written testimony. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Schreier follows:] 
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Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Dr. Schreier. 

The Chair now recognizes Dr. Smith for his five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM S. SMITH, JR., 

ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES 

FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY 

Dr. SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Brooks, Mr. Lipinski and other 

Members of the Committee. It is a privilege to be able to testify to 

this Committee that plays such an important role in looking at the 

balance of investments within the NSF, so this is a very useful 

hearing for you to have called. 

I will use acronyms if you permit. Association of Universities for 

Research and Astronomy, or AURA, is a consortium of universities, 

and we manage the optical telescopes which are different from the 

radio telescopes. They look different. They are placed in different 

locations. But many of the things that Dr. Schreier said also apply 

to the telescopes that we manage. Our facilities are open to all researchers on a peer-review basis. 

The NSF and AURA partnered in the late 1950s to provide an 

alternative to what was then only privately operated telescopes, 

and they did this to ensure broad community participation and access. This decision was extremely important and has been fundamental to the development of astronomy in the United States since 

that time. Ours and I would also say Dr. Schreier’s are the publicly 

funded and publicly available telescopes, and in the optical area, 

they are the only ones, so they are extremely important in serving 

the role. The nurturing of strong national organizations that can 

support the NSF mission and that of the science community to fulfill its potential is a mutual goal both of the NSF and the AURA, 

and we work very closely together in partnership to do that. 

So you are in this hearing paying attention to the facilities that 

precede the future construction, that feed in, in many cases, to future construction projects. We have really worked with the NSF a 

very long time on trying to develop a policy that works well to 

make that transition. Our observatories, like many others in the 

NSF that are in this pot of money called research infrastructure, 

have declined in budget over the last couple of years. So I know 

today is not one that you want to dwell on the budget but it is true 

that the declining percentage of the NSF budget and research infrastructure is a concern. Earlier this week, NOAO was forced to 

terminate about ten percent of its workforce because of the belt 

tightening, and we will have to do for Gemini in the future. I expect other observatories will go through the same issue. 

But I do want to address some of the policy issues that you mentioned. First, the issue of recompetition. I would start by saying the 

primary goal that the NSF should have is building strong, effective 

national organizations that work with the community and fulfill 

the NSF mission. Recompetition is one tool to effect that, but I 

wouldn’t say it was the only tool or even the most important one, 

but if you start from that first premise, what we need to do to 

make AUI or AURA a very effective leader in developing the community, recompetition comes into play and so we do acknowledge 

the value of this but there are many circumstances in which you 

would make a different decision other than recompete the contract, 
37 

and this was certainly the issue that Dr. Schreier mentioned with 

ALMA and NRAO. So there are other features of this overall goal 

that I think should be examined before the decision to recompete 

is actually made. 

The second issue was one of decommissioning facilities, and 

again, this is an extremely important issue for us. The NSF has a 

very sound and well-developed policy for beginning construction 

projects, operating projects. For decommissioning facilities, there 

isn’t a clear approach yet, and I illustrate one such example in my 

testimony. We would like to shut down our facilities in Sac Peak 

but just in terms of relative budgets, it costs about a million dollars 

a year to operate but it may take $7 million or $8 million to decommission. When you sit in Indian tribal lands or Forest Service 

lands and have to return those to their natural state, this can be 

a very substantial cost. And so decommissioning doesn’t come for 

free, and my testimony recommends that some addressing of this 

be put in the NSF budget just as construction projects were. 

You asked about international collaborations. I am almost out of 

time. It is very important for the U.S. community to fulfill its goals 

through such collaborations, so they are very important. 

I will just end by acknowledging the second half of the title of 

this hearing, ensuring fiscal responsibility and accountability, and 

that is a prerequisite to everything else we do. We all know that. 

We work very hard, take it very seriously to get it right. I would 

say that it is a continuous process. The NSF has a very robust way 

of looking at what we do, our accounting processes. That is very appropriate. I would say that our systems are in constant change as 

we engage in this dialog with the NSF, but I think that we have 

a system that fulfills your mandate to ensure this fiscal responsibility. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Smith follows:] 
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Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Dr. Smith, for your insight. 

At this time the Chair recognizes Dr. Divins for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR.DAVID DIVINS, 

VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR, 

OCEAN DRILLING PROGRAMS, 

CONSORTIUM FOR OCEAN LEADER, INC. 

Dr. DIVINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee for the opportunity to testify this morning. 

The Consortium for Ocean Leadership is a consortium of academic institutions involved in ocean sciences. We have been 

through our predecessor organization, Joint Oceanographic Institutions, managing the drilling program, scientific drilling programs 

for NSF for close to 40 years now. The U.S.-support scientific drilling programs are probably one of the earth sciences longest-running and most successful international collaborations that we have 

and we are continuing to open new doors, for example, with nonprofit organizations such as the Moore Foundation to participate in 

the scientific advancement for our program and for our community 

through funding, observatory instrumentation and other areas to 

supplement the NSF funding. 

Ocean drilling has been very successful in itself in terms of the 

science, contributing significantly to a broad range of accomplishments within the earth science disciplines. It has advanced our understanding of solid earth cycles, revealed the flow of fluid in microbe ecosystems beneath the sea floor, and has gathered extensive 

information on earth’s climate history. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, or IODP, is the current phase of scientific ocean drilling, and IODP builds on the successes of earlier programs, the 

Deep Sea Drilling Project and the Ocean Drilling Program, to expand our view of earth history and global processes through ocean 

basin exploration, and the ocean basins are the place to go and do 

this because they are untouched by human interaction and so we 

have millions of years of earth system changes that are recorded 

in the sediments and the rocks below the sea floor, providing a 

unique baseline that we can then measure past and future planetary changes against. 

IODP is different from the other two drilling programs that have 

come before it in that it is a multi-platform program. It is an international program. There are three drilling platforms that are involved. The United States brings to the table the JOIDES Resolution, which is again, that is our facility. The Japanese contribute 

their ship, which is the Chikyu, and the Europeans bring a mission-specific platform, which is a unique platform tailored to a specific expedition. The JOIDES Resolution, or the JR, is the riserless 

platform, which is the technology used for the drilling, and it is the 

U.S. contribution, as I said. 

After 20 years of service in the ocean drilling program, the JR 

was modernized and retrofitted with funds provided by the MREFC 

account. The JR underwent a $150 million two-year renovation and 

returned to service in 2009, and this comprehensive refit, which extended the facility’s life by 20 years, included a replacement of all 

structures forward of the derrick, which is basically the front half 

of the ship. A new multi-floor laboratory was incorporated into the 
58 

structure of the hull and incorporated into the ship itself with the 

majority of the science systems either being renovated or completely replaced. The ship now holds state-of-the-art analytical 

equipment for on-board core descriptions and equipment for a wide 

variety of microbiological, geotechnology and analytical chemical investigations. 

Now, the concern is, Dr. Smith was talking about the changing 

availability of funding for these large facilities becoming an increasing issue. When the JR came out of the shipyard back in 

2009, the prices of oil, as you can remember, were skyrocketing and 

are still continuing to increase. That has had a serious impact on 

the operation and maintenance budget that we have available for 

the JR. The result was a decrease in operational days from 12 

months, basically 365 days a year operations, to only 8 months of 

operations. This has a serious effect, possibly jeopardizing our 

international contributions to participate in future programs where 

the facility is not operated at its peak level, and the reality really 

is that for a small 20 percent increase, you could get 40 percent 

more science and deliver much more groundbreaking and fundamental science. 

The other thing I would like to say is the Ocean Drilling Program is nearing its—its current contract ends at the end of fiscal 

year 2013 and we will be—there is a program at the National 

Science Board to extend the program for one more year with a contract extension which then would be followed by a five-year cooperative agreement with a complete recompete is the process here, and 

for us, the recompetition—we don’t own the facility, NSF does not 

own the facility. It is a leased facility. You put in jeopardy—by having these recompetitions, you put in jeopardy that contract that is 

in place that the costs may become prohibitive or out of reach for 

NSF, given the funding levels that we have. 

And so thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Divins follows:] 
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Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Dr. Divins, for your testimony 

and insight. 

Dr. Boebinger, you now have five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF GREGORY S. BOEBINGER, DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL HIGH MAGNETIC FIELD LABORATORY, 

AND PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, 

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 

Dr. BOEBINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Subcommittee. My name is Greg Boebinger. I am the Director of 

the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and a Physics Professor at Florida State University and the University of Florida. 

The MagLab is a multi-user research facility that is supported by 

a partnership of the NSF and the State of Florida. It is a fine example of the benefits of a federal-state partnership. Since its founding in 1990, in fact, the MagLab has received roughly $500 million 

from the NSF and $350 million from the State of Florida. High 

magnetic fields play a critical role in developing new materials that 

affect nearly every modern technology. Our entire electricity-driven 

lifestyle, motors, computers, high-speed transistors as well as important biomedical tools such as MRI rely on the knowledge gained 

from magnetic-field research. 

The scope of work currently underway at the MagLab is vast. It 

includes the study of new superconductors, batteries and fuel cells 

with the potential to revolutionize energy delivery and storage. It 

also includes the search for new medicines and a crucial analysis 

of petroleum and biofuels that could lead to better fuel production. 

The MagLab has campuses at Florida State University, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Every year, 

MagLab facilities are used by 1,200 scientists from more than 100 

institutions across the United States. Access is through a peer review of proposals submitted by users, whose work spans material 

physics, magnetic engineering, chemistry, biology and biomedicine. 

Funding for the MagLab comes in three competitive stages. The 

first is a full recompetition such as occurred in 1990 for the 

MagLab and per National Science Board policy is expected again 

in 2016. A full recompetition is a winner-take-all competition to 

win the right to establish and operate the Nation’s magnet lab. 

The second stage of competition is our five-year renewal proposal 

process. Each renewal proposal includes the development of a new 

and updated scientific vision as well as a new zero baseline budget 

for the facility. Renewal proposals are peer reviewed by both anonymous referees and an expert NSF site visit committee. It takes 2– 

1/2 years to complete each five-year renewal proposal process. 

The third stage of competition determines the MagLab’s funding 

on an annual basis when the NSF budget decisions are made. 

These decisions weigh competing demands on limited resources and 

take into account the annual evaluation of the laboratory’s performance by the MagLab’s user committee and the NSF site visit 

committee. Competitive review is therefore already built into the 

NSF oversight of its multi-user research facilities. As such, consideration of a full recompetition should begin with a formal process 

to determine whether a winner-take-all recompetition is in the best 

interest of the Nation and the science. The process should analyze 
69 

whether the present facility is underperforming or failing to provide the infrastructure and support needed for world-leading research. The process should also assess the cost of a full recompetition and the impact of a winner-take-all recompetition on future 

funding by partners who have already invested significantly in the 

facility. Future NSF recompetition policy must be flexible because 

every multi-user research facility is different. Each facility here 

today represents a unique funding portfolio, a complex infrastructure and an equally complex relationship with its user community 

and its managing institutions. Each of the MagLab’s three partner 

institutions contributes valuable infrastructure and expertise including professors serving in management roles and research scientists providing support for user research. The MagLab’s buildings, infrastructure and equipment are not federally owned. As 

such, a full recompetition of the MagLab is a decision whether to 

relocate the Nation’s high magnetic-field facility and build it somewhere else. 

As MagLab Director, I want to emphasize that I welcome the ongoing challenge of competitive review by both our users and our 

sponsors. It ensures its scarce resources are used to support the 

best science and the best management of important national assets. At the same time, given the complexity and costs involved in 

a winner-take-all recompetition, a flexible recompete policy is necessary. 

I thank you very much for this opportunity to testify, and I 

would be pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Boebinger follows:] 
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Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Dr. Boebinger. 

At this point the Chair recognizes Dr. Gruner for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. SOL MICHAEL GRUNER, DIRECTOR, 

CORNELL HIGH ENERGY SYNCHROTRON SOURCE, 

AND THE JOHN L. WETHERILL PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

Dr. GRUNER. Thank you, Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Lipinski and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you 

for the opportunity to testify today. 

My name is Sol Gruner and I am the Director and Principal Investigator of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, CHESS. 

CHESS provides X-ray resources essential to users working in 

physics, chemistry, material science, geology, biology, biomedicine, 

engineering, environmental science and even art restoration archaeology. The X-ray beams are generated by an accelerator machine a half mile in circumference in a tunnel underneath the central Cornell University campus. The machine uses both matter and 

antimatter particles passing through magnets to generate X-ray 

beams millions of times more brilliant than possible with conventional X-ray machines. 

The NSF-funded facility was built in under two years and started 

operations in 1979. It has since been repeatedly upgraded during 

competing renewals, which occur roughly every five years, to maintain world-class capabilities. These, by the way, are existential 

competing. NSF annual support for CHESS is about $20 million 

with an additional roughly $15 million from Cornell, the National 

Institutes of Health and related grants. The facility staff of about 

150 people hosts between 600 and 1,000 user visits a year by students, scientists and engineers from 38 states and territories and 

24 countries who use the X-ray beam for an extraordinary variety 

of purposes. The result is about one scientific publication per day 

of X-ray operations. 

The American taxpayer supports CHESS to fulfill three missions. 

The first one, of course, is world-class science, the second one is 

new technology development, and the third one is student training. 

Repeated NSF external reviews have confirmed that CHESS is extremely successful at all three missions. Examples of scientific results including fundamental work on fluid jets underpinning fluid 

injection in engines, basic pharmaceutical and biomedical science, 

discovery of new polymer ceramic composite materials, studies of 

materials at center of earth pressures, studies of famous paintings, 

etc. Our users have won many awards including Nobel Prizes. 

The facility is a world leader in developing synchrotron technology. Synchrotrons are tools enabling much science and industry, 

and for this reason, there is a fierce international competition for 

technological supremacy in the field. Many of the technologies that 

have enabled the field, many of those which now are operating, for 

example, at DOE laboratories, were developed at our facility. We 

are world leaders in superconducting acceleration, X-ray detectors, 

optic simulators and many more areas. 

Perhaps our most important function, however, is student training. Student training is closely linked to innovation. Our graduate 

students develop new ideas from concept through to implementa-
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tion. They are in the control room and behind the shielding wall, 

meaning that the build the facility and learn how to make it better. 

This type of access is consistent with the university mission and is 

essential to training the innovators of tomorrow and the key to 

winning in the highly competitive synchrotron radiation field. In 

addition to receiving technological training, our students are immersed in frontier science working with users from across the 

world and across the country, thereby equipping them for future 

leadership roles. 

A cooperative agreement with the NSF details numerous specific 

steps to ensure that government funds are spent accountably and 

responsibly. These include metrics, regular written reports, audits 

and external reviews. 

I would like to close with the challenge that I believe threatens 

the very existence of major NSF interdisciplinary facilities, especially at universities. As you know, the NSF is divided into divisions, each devoted to a discipline such as chemistry or physics or 

biology. Now, consider the work of one of our users, Dr. Rod 

MacKinnon from Rockefeller University, who used our accelerator, 

which was designed for physics, and the CHESS facility, which is 

funded by the material science division. His work depended on apparatus we custom-built using methods from astronomy and engineering, allowing Dr. MacKinnon to resolve a seminal biological 

problem of biomedical importance, for which he won the Nobel 

Prize in chemistry. Now, I ask you, what division owns that research? It is a quandary. And perhaps it won’t surprise you that 

each NSF division seems to feel that some other division should 

steward the costs. The path of least resistance, the path that I fear 

the agency is on, is to simply terminate broadly interdisciplinary 

facilities, especially at universities where student involvement 

mixes the disciplines. The temptation to do this is especially pronounced during tight fiscal times when the easiest way to increase 

the number of grants that a division can offer is to decrease largefacility obligations. I respectfully submit that this issue deserves 

your attention. 

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

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gruner follows:] 
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Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Dr. Gruner. 

I thank the witnesses, each of them, for their valuable testimony 

and the Members for their upcoming questions. At this point I recognize myself for questioning for five minutes. The Chair will then 

recognize other Members for five minutes. 

The first question I have is for all witnesses. What perceived or 

anticipated benefits, detriments or vulnerabilities could the research conducted at your facilities or the communities you serve 

face by regular recompetition of multi-user facility operating 

awards? Whoever wishes to go first. If not, I will start on the right 

with Dr. Gruner, but if someone else wants to go first, jump at it. 

Dr. GRUNER. We have been recompeted every five years for as far 

back as I can remember. Because the facility is physically embedded in Cornell University, because all the equipment is owned by 

Cornell University, there doesn’t seem to be too much in the way 

of choices. So we deal with every recompetition as existential. Either they are going to fund us and we will continue, or they will 

not fund us and we will simply go out of business. This is considerably different than a freestanding facility where you can recompete 

the operators and the staff stays. In our case, if we fail the recompetition, not only do the operators leave but, of course, the staff are 

dismissed. This helps focus the mind. 

Chairman BROOKS. Dr. Boebinger? 

Dr. BOEBINGER. Yeah, I agree with everything my colleague, Dr. 

Gruner, said. In addition, for the magnet lab at least, because we 

have such a large involvement from the State of Florida, it is difficult to see how and why the State of Florida would be putting up 

35 percent of the funding if they felt that every five years there 

was a winner-take-all competition. Of course, it is a double-edged 

sword. It could be that it gets everyone’s attention. The primary 

point that I would make is that as my colleague said, every five 

years these renewal proposals are not a case of showing up and 

asking for one’s allowance. It starts with a zero-balance budget and 

it ends up with a decision that really does determine the existence 

of the user facility at the university for the next 5 years. 

Chairman BROOKS. Dr. Divins? 

Dr. DIVINS. Again, I would like to agree with what has been said. 

Our case is a little different than the rest of the panel in that the 

facility in question is not actually owned by the National Science 

Foundation or by Ocean Leadership, for example. It is a contracted 

vessel that we receive. We work out, in this case, a ten-year contract with the owner of that vessel. Having regular competition 

could have a pros and cons in that model. If the economic situation 

is such that the vessels are not in demand, we could negotiate a 

nice lower rate on the facility. If the economic conditions are such 

that, you know, oil is booming, they want to use the ship for other 

purposes, then we risk losing the facility due to making the cost 

of having the contract might be prohibitively expensive. So there 

is a balance there in terms of doing that as an annual competition, 

but the other part, in addition to the actual ship is that we do have 

facilities that are contributed to IODP through our academic partners. For example, Texas A&M University and Lamont Doherty 

Earth Observatory of Columbia, they provide in kind buildings and 

overhead and other activities that if you were to do this as a con-
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stant winner-take-all procedure, you know, you could potentially be 

having to either build new buildings, hire new staff on a regular 

basis. So it really is a delicate balance between where are the pros 

and where are the cons to make an annual recompete process. 

Chairman BROOKS. Dr. Smith? 

Dr. SMITH. Thank you. You asked the question from the community standpoint, which is appropriate, and I think really the community should be heard when the agency is making a decision to 

recompete. I will go back to something that I said earlier, and that 

is, if the first question is, is this organization serving the community in the best possible way, you start from that and then ask how 

can it be better, and I think there is one issue that I illustrate in 

my testimony, and that is, if recompetition precludes organizations 

from consolidating, which can certainly offer cost benefits and efficiencies to the community, then the recompetition is not in the best 

interests of the community, and that certainly can be—that is an 

issue that we face. Dr. Schreier mentioned the same one from his 

standpoint. It is a common issue. And so in our case, we are willing 

to compete. I think we will compete strongly. But there ought to 

be other avenues to allow us to restructure to be more effective, 

and when recompetition impedes those, then there should be some 

process for looking at the alternatives. 

The other issue I wanted to point out is that in many cases, for 

example, with our work with the National Solar Observatory, we 

are in the process of heading into the advanced—a major facility 

advanced technology solar telescope, which means that I am signing very large contracts and making very large commitments. It is 

inconceivable to me that you would have a process where I am 

unplugged and somebody else steps in to sign the same contracts. 

I don’t know how that process will work. Again, we will compete 

strongly but there is a large uncertainty just in pure legal and 

logistical terms how you make that transition, and I have to say, 

it is very, very daunting. 

Chairman BROOKS. Dr. Schreier? 

Dr. SCHREIER. Thank you. I agree with many of the previous 

comments, especially Dr. Smith’s. One point I could add is that in 

the case I was discussing, there are many complex international 

agreements involved in running these facilities. Some are government-to-government but many are the legal responsibility of the 

parties who do the work like my organization. We have agreements 

with Chile. We are subject to Chilean labor laws. For example, if 

ALMA is recompeted, if a new organization takes over ALMA, all 

the 300 staff in Chile have to be fired, given severance pay and rehired by a new organization. The labor laws are very strict there. 

There are relationships with our foreign partners in terms of 

ALMA being a joint project. It is a very expensive project. We pay 

less money because other countries are participating but we also 

have to negotiate from a position of strength with, for example, Europe and with Japan in terms of how we support our scientific communities. The European organization is extremely strong. It represents 13 European countries. We have developed relations with 

them through the years, and we know how to maneuver this situation. A new organization will have to start from scratch, figure out 
104 

how to negotiate, how to work together. These are very important 

factors that can’t be ignored in a recompetition. 

Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Dr. Schreier and the other witnesses. 

At this point the Chair recognizes Mr. Lipinski of Illinois for five 

minutes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciated the witnesses’ comments on the recompetition. One 

thing I just want to follow up, hopefully very quickly, Dr. Smith. 

I think you had mentioned a couple times when we were talking 

about recompetition that there would be alternatives. Is there anything more that you can say on that? What are you talking about? 

Dr. SMITH. Yeah. I thank you for asking me to be specific. There 

was something on my mind. The Astronomy and Astrophysics 

Decadal Survey a couple of years ago recommended that the NSF 

consider ways of consolidating the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, NOAO, and Gemini. They sit on similar sites. They serve 

the same community but they are separate programs now. We 

thought that was a serious recommendation and we certainly wanted to examine all aspects of that, but the National Science Board’s 

decision was that when you take two organizations that are under 

separate cooperative agreements and somehow entangle them or 

merge them, then that impedes recompetition because of the coupling and so we’re not now considering consolidating those two organizations, notwithstanding the recommendation of the decadal 

survey. There may be or may not be, we just haven’t had a chance 

to examine it, a tremendous cost savings. There certainly would be 

advantages for the U.S. community. It would be very difficult, of 

course, to accommodate all the international partners but it is a 

situation which because the recompetition itself became the highest 

principle, the more important matters of just building a stronger, 

more responsive organization are things that are off the table. We 

can’t examine that. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Schreier? 

Dr. SCHREIER. I would like to add to that. I think that is a very 

important point that Dr. Smith made. I can tell you from the mirror image standpoint, we are currently operating ALMA and NRAO 

together. We have been asked by NSF because of the National 

Science Board’s recommendation to assess the cost of splitting 

them, and we have done that. We submitted this information to 

NSF and they are analyzing it. But the first year of the spilt would 

cost approximately $27 million more to separate these facilities, 

you know, firing people, rehiring them, creating new infrastructure, 

and there would be a steady state increase of about $6 million a 

year. So we are talking about a steady state increase in cost of 

maybe five percent or so with the budget and a first-time cost that 

is much higher. 

The second point that Dr. Smith made, which I would like to emphasize, is that by being associated, by having the forefront facilities like Gemini and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 

and ALMA and the radio facilities is one way we maintain our 

technology expertise, by working on the forefront instrumentation, 

and that is essential. If you are relegated to separating these facilities and just maintaining things at the odd facilities and not the 
105 

new facilities, then you lose your expertise. It goes somewhere else, 

and that is something I think the United States wouldn’t want to 

do. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I want to move on to the issue of decommissioning 

plans and costs, and Dr. Smith has recommended that NSF considering allowing for decommissioning costs within the MREFC budget, and I just want to open up to the rest of the panel, do you agree 

with this recommendation? Do you have any additional suggestions 

regarding de commissioning that we should consider? 

Dr. SMITH. Can I just maybe offer one clarification? 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Yes. 

Dr. SMITH. I would really like to see decommissioning because it 

is a large one-time cost relative to your operating budget be handled in some agency-wide budget like MREFC, if not MREFC, but 

there could be some other agency-wide pool of money that you 

could use to address that. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you for that clarification. 

Does anyone else have any comments? Dr. Boebinger? 

Dr. BOEBINGER. Yes. For the magnet lab, the issue of decommissioning I think is very different than for some of my colleagues on 

the panel. We have a sufficiently large suite of magnets that typically for us decommissioning is getting funding for the next higher 

performing magnet, and so then we take the old one offline. It was 

similar to the graph that was shown for telescopes but it is a much 

smaller financial scale, and so I don’t see a need at least for us to 

have a formal process for decommissioning. In fact, this upgrading 

of equipment is one way that we get involvement by NIH and Department of Energy as we propose new magnets. So at least for the 

magnet lab, I don’t think it is a budgetary issue. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Anyone else? Dr. Schreier? 

Dr. SCHREIER. I can add an example to what was just said. The 

Very Large Array in New Mexico, which is 27 antennas spread 

across the plains of San Agustin, was the forefront facility dedicated in 1980. It was the best radio telescope in the world. In the 

1990s, the National Science Board approved an upgrade and for 

something less than, significantly less than $100 million, that same 

telescope was just rededicated two weeks ago as the Jansky Very 

Large Array and is between ten and 1,000 times more powerful 

just by virtue of replacing the electronics. So this has become a 

brand-new telescope that is now a half-billion-dollar-class telescope 

developed not by decommissioning, but by just replacing 1970s vintage electronics and correlators and receivers with 2000 vintage 

equipment. This is a very powerful way to proceed and it doesn’t 

happen automatically, but it is a very cost-effective way to get new 

capabilities. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Divins? 

Dr. DIVINS. I would like to second that. I mean, that is exactly 

what has happened with our facility over the years, that as the existing infrastructure becomes dated, the MREFC program was the 

way to—you know, we didn’t have to decommission, we just reinstituted a new program and a new facility and we got the latest 

state-of-the-art technology. It didn’t have to be the same ship in 

our case. It was an open competition for any vessel but it would 

have given us a new facility, and what we ended up with was much 
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better than what we had and we didn’t have to actually shut down 

any facility. We just transitioned to the new one. It was, I think, 

a very cost-effective way to handle it. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Gruner? 

Dr. GRUNER. I would like to add to that. There doesn’t seem to 

be a very effective process to consider the costs of decommissioning 

versus the costs of upgrading or replacing the facility if the need 

for that facility continues to exist. It would be very helpful in fact 

if that were to occur. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. Obviously, each situation, each facility 

is very different in these considerations, and that has to be taken 

into account, so I appreciate hearing all the different perspectives, 

and I yield back. 

Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. 

The Chair next recognizes Mr. Tonko of New York. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Dr. Gruner, from your testimony, it appears clear that there is 

a high demand for the use of the Cornell facility. Does the concept 

of recompeting this facility really apply in this case? 

Dr. GRUNER. I don’t think it applies in the same sense that it 

would apply to recompeting the operation of a standalone facility. 

And, as I had mentioned, because demand continues to be high and 

because we either continue or go out of existence as a facility, the 

decision really is not whether we want to transfer operations to another operator but whether there is enough service going on to the 

Nation to justify the continued expenditure. So in that sense, a 

competing renewal makes a great deal of sense. A recompetition of 

the operation of the facility does not. 

Mr. TONKO. And I think you are responding to that in that hypothetically if Cornell were to lose, you would lose too. There is probably no other facility that would show interest or—— 

Dr. GRUNER. I am not quite sure. It is worth noting that the history of the Cornell facility has been complex because it started out 

actually as two facilities, one of which dealt with high-energy physics. It was arguably the most productive high-energy physics experiment in the world. It went on for 30 years. And eventually that 

physics played out and the NSF and Cornell University terminated 

that activity. We then looked at what can be done with the physical 

apparatus because ultimately that represents a huge taxpayer investment, and it was clear that there is a tremendous demand, continued demand, for the X-ray resources which also been going on 

over that entire period of time. That is what we would like to leverage on, where we feel we can best serve the American taxpayer. 

Mr. TONKO. And in your testimony, you described the process for 

reapplying to NSF for the operating support, I believe? 

Dr. GRUNER. Yes. 

Mr. TONKO. Is this a rigorous review? 

Dr. GRUNER. Oh, absolutely. The review typically consists of a 

proposal which encompasses what you want to do in the way of upgrading the facility, what the new research focuses will be, why it 

is justified to continue in a unique fashion certain activities or to 

create new activities that uniquely serve the country. These reviews are then sent out, or rather this proposal is sent out for written reviews. The written reviews come back and a national panel 
107 

is assembled by the NSF to do a site review. They address both the 

concerns that might have occurred with the written review and 

things that they might have seen at the site review, and make a 

recommendation to the NSF as to whether the facility should be renewed at all. 

Mr. TONKO. So I am hearing that this type of review ensures 

that NSF funds are well spent on their given facilities based on information that they gather through the review? 

Dr. GRUNER. I believe that is the case. 

Mr. TONKO. Can you think of any other interaction that NSF 

could do to strengthen the outcomes of the effectiveness or the efficiency of the funds? 

Dr. GRUNER. Well, I think at this point the NSF has been struggling with the issue of what recompetition means for its broad portfolio of different kinds of facilities. I think it is very clear from 

where we sit at this table that no one size is going to fit all. The 

portfolio of facilities NSF operates are sufficiently diverse in terms 

of their ownership, the way they are run, who they serve, and the 

collaborations that they have, that some flexibility and common 

sense has to be applied in order to make the system work. 

Mr. TONKO. And if that facility at Cornell were to close, are there 

alternate sites for doing the work? 

Dr. GRUNER. There are facilities operated by the Department of 

Energy, which of course are also light sources. But the system that 

has evolved in the United States is that our facility serves a very 

particular function. It complements what goes on in the DOE laboratories. If you go to every single one of the DOE laboratories, you 

will find that many of the people who lead those facilities or operate the accelerator or run their beam lines were trained at ours, 

because that is our function. We are an educational institution. We 

are able to train people by taking them behind the shielding wall 

where they can learn how to make these things work. It is not 

something that you can learn in a classroom. You actually have to 

have hands-on operation. That is largely incompatible with the 

mission of a facility that has to be operating all the time to get the 

maximum number of users through. 

Mr. TONKO. And you mentioned a wide array of disciplines that 

the facility is applying—is offering. Can you give us a few examples 

of research outside of high-energy physics that are being pursued? 

Dr. GRUNER. Right now, high-energy physics is not being done on 

the machine. All the disciplines that I mentioned, chemistry, biology and so on are being done on the machine. So we have a very 

large base of people who are doing work on protein structure. 

These are the proteins that are basis of much of modern biotechnology. We have a very large contingent of people who are 

doing materials research on new kinds of polymeric materials. We 

are now engaged with the Air Force in trying to build a capability 

to help them understand how metals fail when they are repeatedly 

stressed. As you know, you have to change the skin of aircraft regularly because there really isn’t a good understanding of the failure 

mechanisms. We have a very vibrant community that uses diamond anvil cells. These are diamonds where you crush materials 

to try to make new kinds of materials that would then be metastable; the ultimate goal is to make something stronger than dia-
108 

mond. The list goes on. It is very diverse. We had a group of people 

who are analyzing paintings. In the last few years we have discovered a new Brueghel the Younger painting. We revealed a painting 

that was covered over by N.C. Wyeth. It is just a very vibrant place 

in that regard. 

Mr. TONKO. I understand that. It is in upstate New York. So we 

thank you for the contributions you make to the country. 

Dr. GRUNER. Thank you. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Tonko. 

At this point the Chair recognizes Ms. Bonamici of Oregon for 

questions. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to ask each of you a bit about what your facilities do 

to inspire students with regard to STEM education. I know, Dr. 

Schreier, you gave an example about pulsars and that you have interns, and you talked about AUI promoting STEM education but I 

would like to hear a little bit from each of you about whether you 

have outreach efforts and to any particular groups and how you 

bring students in and inspire them to pursue careers or to further 

their efforts in STEM education. Thank you. 

Dr. SMITH. Yes. Thank you. This is an extremely high priority for 

us, and I think that AURA facilities, as the others here, offer a research experience for students, and so as they progress through 

their careers, whether they enter into the sciences or a STEM field 

or not, it is still extremely important that they see the working environment in which science gets done and that they see how scientists work and they learn to think critically. Again, it matters 

less whether they become scientists but they certainly need to understand, you know, how the STEM—how the sciences work and so 

we do have a very active program of bringing in students. There 

is a program, research experience for undergraduates. We are very 

active participants in that, which is an NSF program. It is very 

successful, and I would say that although it is very competitive, the 

diversity of the students coming in is absolutely impressive. I think 

we all know that the future challenge in the sciences is to make 

them more diverse, to bring in more women and minorities because 

that—we don’t look very diverse today but we know that we have 

to achieve a much higher level of diversity in the future. So we are 

all working on that pipeline. Our facilities, I have some numbers 

in here but I will just tell you that we take it very seriously. It is 

a major—one of our major priorities. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

And others? Yes, Doctor. 

Dr. BOEBINGER. Yes, I agree with what Dr. Smith said. The magnet lab has a Center for Integrating Research and Learning, so this 

is a team of professional educators who bring together the scientists at the magnet lab with the K–12 programs and the undergraduate research programs. So that group makes face-to-face contact with 10,000 K–12 students every year. We also have an open 

house annually at the magnet lab. We get 5,000 people from the 

general public coming through. We have about 100 hands-on exhibits. So there are programs that reach out to a broad audience. We 

also have programs where we are seeking to identify individuals to, 
109 

if you will, get them networked and get that leg up. Among those 

programs is the Research Opportunities for Undergraduates program that brings undergraduates in for the summer to work in a 

laboratory. We also have a Research Experience for Teachers program for K–12 teachers, and in particular we try to attract teachers and the majority of those teachers come from Title I schools. 

We also have a workforce initiative program where our scientists 

go out to HBCUs, women’s institutes, and they give lectures. They 

talk about the research at the magnet lab. They have some funding 

that is made available that they can invite students to the summer 

programs and we found that that is a way to really form relationships that bring undergraduates and grad students into the larger 

network of research in the United States. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. Any others? 

Dr. SCHREIER. I wouldn’t mind adding to what I said before. I 

gave you only one example. We have several—we also participate 

in the Research Opportunities for Undergraduates. It is an interesting thing. One of the members of my board, who happens to be 

a professor at Cornell University and a member of the National 

Academy of Sciences, was a summer student at Green Bank in 

West Virginia in the 1970s while she was a student, and she became a scientist. We have visitor centers at both New Mexico and 

West Virginia. The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is in 

one of the poorest counties east of the Mississippi and has a very 

advanced science center courtesy of our existence there. We have 

programs for high school students there. We have been expanding 

this to Chile. We have had a sister cities program between San 

Pedro de Atacama in Chile and Magdalena, New Mexico. We have 

two interesting indigenous, not very advanced towns next to worldleading telescopes, and we set up a program whereby teachers and 

students were exchanged between the two. So people learn how 

these different cultures work, and also get interested in science, 

which they do. We have recently been—I have recently been personally talking with the University of Colorado, which has one of 

the better STEM education programs in the country teaching current teachers and first-year college students how to get more involved with science and mathematics to see how we can leverage 

the local programs we have in radio astronomy to a national level 

to improve STEM education. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much. My time is expired. Thank 

you. 

Chairman BROOKS. The Chair is willing to entertain a second 

round of questions from the Members if any so desire. Seeing none, 

I would like to thank our witnesses for their valuable testimony 

and the Members for their questions. The Members of the Subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses, and we 

will ask you to respond to those in writing. The record will remain 

open for two weeks for additional comments from Members. 

The witnesses are excused and this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(111) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
112 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Ethan J. Schreier 
113 
114 
115 
116 

Responses by Dr. William S. Smith 
117 
118 
119 
120 

Responses by Dr. David Divins 
121 
122 

Responses by Dr. Gregory S. Boebinger 
123 
124 
125 
126 
127 

Responses by Dr. Sol Michael Gruner 
128 
129 
130 

Æ