Date: 2016-06-13
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 5049. the NSF Major Research Facility Reform Act of 2016. While I support the passage of this bill in the House today. I do so with some reservations. which I will discuss later in my remarks. Major research facilities play a central role in helping the NSF meet its mission to promote the progress of science and cultivate the next generation of scientists and innovators. These facilities include telescopes. research ships. engineering test beds. and other cuttingedge research platforms. We recently held a hearing to congratulate the scientists who are working on one such endeavor. the LIGO project. which detected gravity waves. As the LIGO project demonstrated. these efforts involving major facilities have the potential to generate profound breakthroughs in science and to inspire a whole new generation of our best and brightest to pursue careers in STEM. However. these major facilities also cost a lot of money. Properly managing those large expenses is critical to ensuring the success of the major facilities projects and is. ultimately. critical to the advancement of science. The intent of this bill is a good one. It is to ensure the proper oversight and accountability for the National Science Foundations investments in major research facilities. The National Science Foundation manages about 15 research facilities across its diverse science and engineering portfolio. In any given year. three or four new major facilities are under construction. H.R. 5049 largely addresses the design and construction phase of these facilities. which is the highestrisk phase. Republican and Democratic members and staff of the Committee on Science. Space. and Technology worked together over many weeks to develop and move through the committee a bill that addresses the need for strong oversight and accountability while taking into consideration the legitimate concerns of the agency and stakeholder groups about unintended consequences. I appreciate the work of Mr. LOUDERMILK and Chairman SMITH and the Republican and Democratic staffs in this regard. However. the devil is always in the details. and I hope that discussion will continue on some of the details if this legislation continues to move forward. The fact is that every other Federal agency is held to governmentwide standards and policies for contracting. In this bill. we are creating a different set of rules with less flexibility for the National Science Foundation even though the Foundations record. overall. has been a very good one and even though the Foundation has taken many aggressive steps already to rectify deficiencies where they did exist. As such. I hope that we tread carefully. Given that the impetus for this bill was one project that went awry because of an inexperienced project management team. the last thing we want to do is to enact a law that discourages the most experienced project management professionals from doing business with the NSF. thereby increasing the risk to the taxpayer. [ 1915 In closing. I want to thank Mr. LOUDERMILK and Chairman SMITH for working with us to improve the legislation. and I hope we continue to work with the agency. the National Science Board. and the expert stakeholders to ensure we achieve our shared goals of both safeguarding taxpayers money and promoting the progress of science I reserve the balance of my time.