Date: 1998-09-14
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of H.R. 3332. the Next Generation Internet Research Act of 1998. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Wisconsin the chairman of the Committee on Science and also the gentleman from California the ranking democratic Member. for their efforts to develop the bill and to bring it before the House. H.R. 3332 authorizes the Next Generation Internet initiative which will support the research and development activities necessary to expand the capacity and capabilities to the Internet to meet the growing demands placed upon it. The applications that are straining the current Internet or even exceed its capabilities are coming largely from the research and education communities. Achieving the goals of the Next Generation Internet initiative will require leadingedge research on networking hardware and software technologies. It also will require the creation of a largescale highperformance testbed network. This testbed network will provide connectivity among many academic. industry and government user sites. It can then be used to implement challenging applications that will test the new networking technologies and ensure that they are scalable to the worldwide network. In short. this initiative is a collaborative research project to develop and demonstrate next generation networking technology in a realistic network environment. This bill will amend the highperformance Computing Act of 1991 to incorporate the Next Generation Initiative Internet initiative within the existing coordinated multiagency research and development effort in advanced computing and network research. The bill provides general authority for agencies carrying out activities under the 1991 act to advance the capacity and capabilities of the Internet and to develop and. demonstrate highperformance testbed networks. In addition. this bill explicitly authorizes the participating agencies to implement this initiative and task that presidentially appointed advisory committee for highperformance computing and networking activities to provide periodic critical assessment of the initiative. The funding authorization provided by the bill Is consistent with the level of the Presidents budget request. and the administration fully supports passage of this legislation. The Internet is one of the best examples of a Federal research and development investment that resulted in significant public beaefits. It is a growing and increasingly -important communications medium for commerce as well as for education and research uses and for personal communications. This initiative authorized by this bill builds on past successes of Federal R&D and provides support of research needed to accelerate the development of the technologies. It will make it faster. more dependable. which will result from this initiative. enable new applications and crisis management and response. distance education. environmental monitoring. health care delivery and scientific research to name a few. In a very real way it will help shape the future. and I urge my colleagues to support and pass this bill. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.