SEC. 6. REPORT ON FUTURE USE OF DEPARTMENTAL LAB-
ORATORIES.
(a) REQUIREMENT.—The Secretary, in co-
ordination with the Secretary of Defense and
other appropriate Federal officers, shall sub-
mit to Congress within 6 months after the
date of enactment of this Act, a report on the
future use of the departmental laboratories.
(b) ALTERNATIVES.—Such report shall iden-
tify and examine the costs and benefits of al-
ternatives to the current mission assign-
ments, budgets, and management structures
of the departmental laboratories. The alter-
natives examined should be those which seek
to enhance the laboratories’ contribution to
United States basic science or economic com-
petitiveness while maintaining the labora-
tories’ abilities to perform their assigned mis-
sions.
(c) PRESERVATION
OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
COMPETENCIES.—Such report shall identify
and examine ways to ensure that the Nation
preserves the core intellectual and technical
competencies of the United States in nuclear
weapons, including weapons design, system
integration, manufacturing, security, use con-
trol, reliability assessment, and certification,
and shall include an identification of any ex-
isting or anticipated deficiencies in retaining
trained personnel in such areas.
(d) COST REDUCTION OPTIONS.—Such re-
port shall identify and examine options for re-
ducing the cost of the Department’s nuclear
weapons research, development, engineering,
and test-related programs by eliminating any
unnecessary redundancies between the de-
partmental defense laboratories, including
options that maintain a process of peer re-
view by more than one laboratory for nuclear
weapons design activities and options that
eliminate such review process. The report
should assess feasibility, costs, and risks for
each identified option. Costs to be identified
and examined should include both cost sav-
ings due to consolidation and conversion
costs, including an assessment of work force
retraining and environmental cleanup.
SEC. 7. INDUSTRIAL ADVICE.
(a) ADVICE TO SECRETARY.—The Secretary
shall seek advice from representatives of
United States industry, and of educational in-
stitutions and professional and technical soci-
eties in the United States, who have experi-
ence in the industrial sector, and may estab-
lish within the Department an advisory board
to provide the Secretary with advice regard-
ing the Department’s activities aimed at col-
laborating with industry in the areas of re-
search, technology development, and tech-
nology transfer.
(b) ADVICE TO DEPARTMENTAL LABORATORY
DIRECTORS.—The director of each depart-
mental laboratory shall seek advice from rep-
resentatives of United States industry, and of
educational institutions and professional and
technical societies in the United States, who
have experience in the industrial sector, and
may establish an advisory group, to assist
such director in—
(1) integrating technology transfer
considerations into the planning and per-
formance evaluation of laboratory re-
search and development activities;
(2) evaluating new initiatives pro-
posed by the departmental laboratory
and identifying opportunities for collabo-
rative efforts with United States industry
based on those initiatives; and
(3) evaluating the long-term direction
of ongoing programs at the departmental
laboratory from the perspective of United
States industry.
(c) USE
OF EXISTING BOARDS.—The Sec-
retary or the director of a departmental lab-
oratory may utilize existing advisory boards
to achieve the purposes of this section.
SEC. 8. AMENDMENTS TO STEVENSON-WYDLER TECH-
NOLOGY INNOVATION ACT OF 1980.
Section 12 of the Stevenson-Wydler Tech-
nology Innovation Act of 1980 (15 U.S.C.
3710a) is amended—
(1) in subsection (a), by inserting
after paragraph (2) the following:
‘‘The head of any agency using the authority
given it under paragraph (1) to enter into co-
operative research and development agree-
ments shall make all reasonable efforts to ex-
pedite the negotiation, processing, and ap-
proval of such agreements.’’; and
(2) in subsection (c)(5)—
(A) by amending subparagraph
(C)(i) to read as follows:
‘‘(C)(i) Except as provided in subpara-
graphs (D) and (E), any agency which has con-
tracted with a non-Federal entity to operate
a laboratory shall review and approve, re-
quest specific modifications to, or disapprove
a joint work statement and cooperative re-
search and development agreement that is
submitted by the director of such laboratory
within 30 days after such submission. In any
case in which such an agency disapproves or
requests the modification of a joint work
statement or cooperative research and devel-
opment agreement submitted under this sec-
tion, the agency shall promptly transmit a
written explanation of such disapproval or
modification to the director of the laboratory
concerned. In any case where an agency has
requested specific modifications to a joint
work statement or cooperative research and
development agreement, the agency shall ap-
prove or disapprove any resubmission of such
joint work statement or cooperative research
and development agreement within 15 days
after resubmission. No agreement may be en-
tered into by a Government-owned, contrac-
tor-operated laboratory under this section be-
fore approval of both the cooperative re-
search and development agreement and a
joint work statement.’’;
(B) by striking clauses (ii), (iv),
and (vi) of subparagraph (C);
(C) by redesignating clauses (iii)
and (v) as clauses (ii) and (iv), respec-
tively;
(D) by inserting after subpara-
graph 
(C)(ii) 
the 
following 
new
clause:
‘‘(iii) Any cooperative research and devel-
opment agreement involving a Federal com-
mitment of $500,000 or more shall contain
technical milestones and other appropriate
performance goals and evaluation criteria,
with an anticipated schedule for meeting
such milestones, goals, and criteria. Each
sponsoring Federal agency shall conduct ap-
propriate reviews of the work performed
within such cooperative research and devel-
opment agreement to determine whether such
agreements are meeting established mile-
stones, require modification, or warrant ter-
mination.’’;
(E) in subparagraph (C)(iv), as so
redesignated by subparagraph (C) of
this paragraph—
(i) by striking ‘‘under clause
(iv) within’’ and inserting in lieu
thereof ‘‘of a cooperative research
and 
development 
agreement
under clause (i) within’’;
(ii) by striking ‘‘successive 30-
day period’’ and inserting in lieu
thereof 
‘‘successive 
10-day 
pe-
riod’’; and
(iii) by striking ‘‘under clause
(iv).’’ and inserting in lieu thereof
‘‘under clause (i).’’;
(F) 
by 
redesignating 
subpara-
graph (D) as subparagraph (E); and
(G) by inserting after subpara-
graph (C) the following new subpara-
graph:
‘‘(D)(i) A Federal agency may permit the
director of any of its Government-owned, con-
tractor-operated laboratories to enter into a
cooperative research and development agree-
ment involving a Federal commitment of
$1,000,000 or less, whenever that activity is
consistent with and furthers an assigned mis-
sion of the laboratory, without the specific ap-
proval of the agency for the cooperative re-
search and development agreement.
‘‘(ii) A laboratory director who is granted
authority by a Federal agency to enter into a
cooperative research and development agree-
ment pursuant to clause (i) shall, upon re-
quest, provide the Federal agency with an ex-
planation of how the agreement will com-
plement and contribute to the laboratory’s
missions and activities.’’.
SEC. 9. NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIP AWARD.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—The Secretary is au-
thorized to establish a National Technology
Partnership Award for presentation to pri-
vate sector or Federal Government organiza-
tions or individuals which have substantially
benefited the economic or social well-being of
the United States through public sector-pri-
vate sector collaboration involving tech-
nology development or technology transfer,
and which as a consequence are deserving of
special recognition.
(b) FUNDING.—The Secretary is authorized
to seek and accept gifts from public and pri-
vate sources to carry out a program to admin-
ister the National Technology Partnership
Award.
SEC. 10. FEDERAL LABORATORY MISSION EVALUATION
AND COORDINATION.
The President, through the National
Science and Technology Council, shall—
(1) review on an ongoing basis the
missions of, activities conducted at, and
scientific, 
technical, 
and 
human 
re-
sources at, Federal laboratories, with the
goals of—
(A) improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of the overall Federal
laboratory system; and
(B) ensuring that research and
development conducted at Federal
laboratories is coordinated to maxi-
mize its contribution to United States
economic growth, environmental pro-
tection, national security, expansion
of human knowledge, and other im-
portant national goals;
(2) develop and ensure the implemen-
tation of a process for assigning missions
to the Federal laboratories with the best
scientific, technical, and human capabili-
ties for successfully addressing such mis-
sions;
(3) develop and ensure implementa-
tion, as appropriate, of a cross-cutting
program evaluation system for research
and development activities at the Federal
laboratories 
including, 
where 
appro-
priate, the establishment of technical
milestones and other measures for per-
formance evaluation for major activities
at Federal laboratories;
(4) develop guidelines governing the
application of intellectual property law
for technology transfer activities at Fed-
eral laboratories;
(5) determine on an ongoing basis
whether 
specific 
Federal 
laboratories
should be realigned, consolidated, closed,
or otherwise altered in order to meet the
goals stated in paragraph (1);
(6) review the process by which the
Federal Government enters into coopera-
tive research and development agree-
ments with companies that are not Unit-
ed States-owned companies (as defined in
section 28(j)(2) of the National Institute
of Standards and Technology Act (15
U.S.C. 278n(j)(2))); and
(7) prepare, and submit to the Con-
gress within 1 year after the date of en-
actment of this Act, a plan for carrying
out this section.
SEC. 11. POLICY ON CAPITAL PROJECTS AND CONSTRUC-
TION.
(a) REQUIREMENT
OF
PRIOR
AUTHORIZA-
TION.—(1) No funds are authorized to be ap-
propriated to the Secretary for any substan-
tial construction project, substantial equip-
ment 
acquisition, 
or 
major 
construction
project unless a report on such project or ac-
quisition has been provided to Congress in ac-
cordance with subsection (b).
(2) The Secretary may not obligate any
funds 
for 
any 
substantial 
construction
project, substantial equipment acquisition, or
major 
construction 
project 
unless 
such
project or acquisition has been specifically
authorized by statute.
(3) This subsection may not be amended
or modified except by specific reference to
this subsection.
(b) REPORTS TO CONGRESS.—(1) Within 180
days after the date of the enactment of this
Act, the Secretary shall submit to the Con-
gress a report that identifies all construction
projects and acquisitions of the Department
of Energy described in subsection (a) for
which the preliminary design phase is com-
pleted but the construction or acquisition is
not completed. Such report shall include—
(A) an estimate of the total cost of
completion of the construction project or
acquisition, itemized by individual activ-
ity and by fiscal year; and
(B) an identification of which con-
struction projects or acquisitions have