<DOC> [108th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:97999.wais] DEFINING FEDERAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: WHO? WHERE? WHAT? WHY? AND HOW MUCH? ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ JULY 7, 2004 __________ Serial No. 108-251 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 97-999 WASHINGTON : 2004 _________________________________________________________________ For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866)512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------ KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont (Independent) Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director Rob Borden, Parliamentarian Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri DOUG OSE, California STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ------ ------ MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Ex Officio TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Bob Dix, Staff Director Ursula Wojciechowski, Professional Staff Member Juliana French, Clerk Adam Bordes, Minority Professional Staff Member C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on July 7, 2004..................................... 1 Statement of: Fossum, Donna, manager, RaDiUS project, RAND Corp.; Edward Lazowska, co-Chair, President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington; William Scherlis, professor, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon; and Stephen Squires, chief science officer, vice president, Hewlett-Packard................................. 55 Nelson, Dr. David, Director, National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development (Executive Office of the President); Dr. Peter Freeman, co-Chair of Interagency Working Group and Assistant Director, Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, National Science Foundation; Dr. Hratch Semerjian, Acting Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology; and Dr. C. Edward Oliver, Associate Director, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, U.S. Department of Energy..................................................... 10 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 8 Fossum, Donna, manager, RaDiUS project, RAND Corp., prepared statement of............................................... 58 Freeman, Dr. Peter, co-Chair of Interagency Working Group and Assistant Director, Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, National Science Foundation, prepared statement of...................................... 24 Lazowska, Edward, co-Chair, President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, prepared statement of...................................... 73 Nelson, Dr. David, Director, National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development (Executive Office of the President), prepared statement of............ 14 Oliver, Dr. C. Edward, Associate Director, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, U.S. Department of Energy, prepared statement of...................................... 41 Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 4 Scherlis, William, professor, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, prepared statement of..................... 85 Semerjian, Dr. Hratch, Acting Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology, prepared statement of............ 33 Squires, Stephen, chief science officer, vice president, Hewlett-Packard, prepared statement of..................... 97 DEFINING FEDERAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: WHO? WHERE? WHAT? WHY? AND HOW MUCH? ---------- WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2004 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Putnam and Clay. Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior counsel; Ursula Wojciechowski, professional staff; Juliana French, clerk; Felipe Colon, fellow; Michelle Ash, minority senior legislative counsel; Adam Bordes, minority professional staff member; and Cecelia Morton, minority office manager. Mr. Putnam. A quorum being present, this hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census will come to order. Good afternoon and welcome to the subcommittee hearing on ``Defining Federal Information Technology Research and Development. Who? Where? What? Why? and How much?'' the purpose of this hearing is to examine the extent of Federal funding for and the leveraging of information technology research and development across agencies, academia and industry. By addressing the basic questions, this subcommittee hopes to identify the following: How many different agencies of the Federal Government are currently engaged in conducting or managing IT research and development; is there an overall strategic plan that provides an opportunity to leverage investments, both internally and externally, and to identify complementary activities in an effort to avoid duplication; how much is being spent on an annualized basis on information technology R & D; where and how these investments are actually being made; what are the outcome measurements and expectations associated with those investments; is there a defined set of goals and objectives or focus areas that are targeted by these efforts and what have been the recent results; what is the role of the academic community and the private sector, and how are these partnerships created and maintained? The Federal Government funds research and development to meet the mission requirements of the departments and agencies. Advances in the uses of IT research and development are continuing to change the way those Federal agencies communicate, use information, deliver services and conduct business. The technology and expertise generated by this endeavor may have applications beyond the immediate goals or intent of federally funded research and development. Federal support reflects the consensus that while basic research is the foundation for many innovations, the rate of return to society as a whole generated by investments and such work is significant. The potential benefits of federally funded R&D related to information technology are endless. Federally funded programs have played a crucial role in supporting long term research into the fundamental aspects of computing. The unanticipated results of research are often as important as anticipated results. The Internet, electronic mail and instant messaging were by-products of government funded research from the 1960's. Another aspect of government funded IT R&D is that it often leads to open standards, something that many perceive as beneficial, encouraging deployment and further investment. Previous oversight hearings conducted by this subcommittee have identified an important missing link in the cyber security arena that requires further attention in the research and development area. We have learned that inadequate tools exist today to conduct necessary quality assurance testing of existing and emerging software and hardware products that could better identify flaws, defects and other vulnerabilities prior to deployment. With a renewed commitment on the part of software and hardware manufacturers to quality and security of the products they introduce into the marketplace, a collaborative approach to developing more mature testing tools are essential to improved protection of computer networks and the information assets they contain. The outcomes achieved through public and private funding programs create a synergistic environment in which both fundamental and application driven research is conducted, benefiting government, industry, academia and the public. Government funding appears to have allowed research on a larger scale and with greater diversity, vision and flexibility than would have been possible without government involvement. It is important to recognize collaborative efforts across programs and agencies and stress the importance of leveraging efforts with academia and the private sector. Universities, private companies, and Federal labs are important partners in this endeavor. It will be productive to explore new methods to encourage increased activities by other parties in the innovation process, particularly if the goal is to continue the technological advancement which has been so instrumental to this Nation's economic growth and high standard of living. Because investments in science and technology have resulted in unparalleled economic growth as well as the standard of living and quality of life, we must emphasize the importance of supporting the efforts of IT R&D. Advances have been possible only with the support of the public and private investment in R&D, according to the President's budgets. Yet challenges continue. There are many R&D needs vying for a limited amount of R&D dollars. Federal research and development program managers face tough choices in deciding where the money should go and how much is appropriate for information technology. Further, it is important to ensure that Federal agencies are not pursuing conflicting goals. It is essential that agencies, universities and industry move toward a more coordinated, unified approach. Multiple Federal agencies will need to coordinate their efforts to ensure that new understanding of information technology and network security is generated and that this knowledge is transitioned into useful products. Academia will have developed and expanded degree programs to ensure that an adequate work force exists to put new tools and techniques into practice. The private sector has a critical role to play, as it will contain the developers and suppliers as well as the major purchasers of new IT technologies and services. Government sponsorship of research, especially in universities, helps develop the IT talent used by industry, universities, and other pieces of the economy. When companies create products using the ideas and work force that results from federally sponsored research, they repay the Nation in jobs, tax revenues, productivity increases and global leadership. We need a strong strategic plan to ensure that IT R&D is being used to maximize improvement and mission goals and performance. federally funded research and development are key endeavors within the respective agencies and in cooperation with universities in the private sector. It is essential to meet vital Federal needs and sustain global leadership in science and in the engineering of information technology. I welcome today's distinguished panel of witnesses and look forward to their testimony and the opportunity to explore these matters in greater detail. At this time I would like to recognize the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Clay, for his opening statement. Mr. Clay. [The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.003 Mr. Clay. I thank the chairman for holding today's hearing on what is an important but often overlooked portion of our government's research and development portfolio. The Federal Government will spend approximately $60 billion on the many different components of information technology during fiscal year 2004. In contrast, the fiscal year 2004 budget only allocates $2.2 billion for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program, a minimal amount considering the role of higher performance computing and technology in our mission to enhance government efficiency, accessibility and security for all citizens. Although funding for IT research and development has increased fourfold since 1990, along with an increased coordination throughout multiple agency participants for such activity, there is a disconnect between the level of government funding and its importance in the development of a strong IT work force and premier academic institutions. Furthermore, the government's role in IT research and development fosters the creation of common criteria and open standards that both government and private industry can utilize for their benefit. When focused, the government's investments in IT research often results in jobs, economic growth, and a higher standard of living in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Moreover, such resources permits our Nation to remain on the cutting edge of technology in vital areas, including health care, education, manufacturing, and the basic sciences. This concludes my remarks, Mr. Chairman, and I ask that they be included in the record. [The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.005 Mr. Putnam. Without objection, they will be included in the appropriate place in the record. At this time we will move to the administration of the oath. If our witnesses would please rise and raise your right hands. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that all the witnesses responded in the affirmative, and we will move to our first panel's testimony. I would ask that all of our panelists adhere to the 5-minute rule for your opening statements and we will have successive rounds of questions from the panel to get to all of your issues. Our first witness is Dr. David Nelson. Dr. Nelson is the Director of the National Coordination Office for IT Research and Development and a member of the Senior Executive Service. He is responsible for the coordination of planning, budget and assessment activities for the Federal networking and information breakthrough that advance the science of IT. Dr. Nelson is cochair of the Interagency Working Group for the NITRD program. Dr. Nelson joined the NCO from NASA, where he was Deputy CIO with primary responsibility for information technology security of all NASA systems and additional responsibilities in scientific computing and enterprise architecture. He previously served at the Department of Energy, which he joined from Oak Ridge National Labs, where he was research scientist working mainly in theoretical plasma physics and its applications to fusion energy. He is the author of numerous papers in theoretical plasma physics, computational science and research policy. He has twice received the President's Meritorious Rank Award for superior sustained managerial performance. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes, Dr. Nelson. STATEMENTS OF DR. DAVID NELSON, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COORDINATION OFFICE FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT); DR. PETER FREEMAN, CO- CHAIR OF INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DIRECTORATE, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION; DR. HRATCH SEMERJIAN, ACTING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY; AND DR. C. EDWARD OLIVER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING RESEARCH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Dr. Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I have submitted my written testimony to the subcommittee and ask that it be entered into the record, and I will limit my oral testimony to a brief summary of four points. Let me start by saying that I agree with many of your opening comments, both from the majority and the minority side, with regard to the importance of information technology research and development, and I think that agreement will be shown through my oral testimony. First, I would like to discuss the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program. This program derives from authorization in the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. For fiscal year 2005 the President's budget requests slightly over $2 billion for the program in 13 participating agencies. The program supports long-range research as well as research infrastructure, such as research computer centers and research networks. Performers include universities, Federal research centers and laboratories, national laboratories and federally funded research and development centers, private companies, and nonprofit organizations. Research is funded by the participating agencies through grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and other authorities. The agencies work together under the program to identify research needs, plan research programs, and review progress. I brought along one copy of planning research needs. This is in the high confidence software and systems research area and was developed by one of the coordinating groups under the program. Agencies may coordinate their selection of research performers through joint solicitations and coordinated proposal reviews. The program interacts with stakeholders through workshops and other meetings and disseminates research results through publications, reports and presentations. Often activities under the program are conducted jointly with other Federal programs that benefit from information technology. Historical accomplishments include the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative in the early 1990's that helped create modern computational science, parallel supercomputers, the modern Internet and Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser. The Next Generation Internet Initiative in the late 1990's helped to create the technology for today's high bandwidth optical networks and demonstrated the basis for today's high performance network computing. The program receives advice and guidance from the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, which was authorized in the High Performance Computing Act. Members of the committee are drawn from the private sector, and I believe Dr. Ed Lazowska, cochair of the committee, is testifying before the subcommittee today. Let me turn to my second main point. This concerns the value of the government's historical investment in information technology research. In 1995, the National Research Council documented the return on this investment. The study cited numerous examples of information technologies whose roots lay in federally funded research or that were nurtured through critical development periods by Federal research. Examples include network technology in the Internet, the Web browser, computer windowing, computer graphics, reduced instruction set computers, design of very large scale integrated circuits, data storage technology, and parallel computing architecture. In 1999, the National Research Council extended its 1995 conclusions, citing additional contributions to technology and to the economy. Federal information technology research also returns value directly to government operations through at least two pathways, the first through government purchase of commercial off-the-shelf information technology products that have been invented or improved through Federal research. The second pathway is through the development of special information technology needed for government missions. This is clearly shown in the government's research and development programs, where many of the specialized information technologies have been invented or developed by the Networking and Information Technology R&D Program, often in direct partnership with the program intending to use those technologies. Let me turn to my third point. This concerns the value of current Federal investments in IT research. The Networking and Information Technology R&D Program is currently working in areas such as improving the quality and reliability of software, improving the security of operating systems, applications and networks, making it easier and more productive for humans to interact with computer systems, including access by individuals with disabilities, managing resources distributed over the Internet, applying computer modeling and simulation to scientific and engineering fields, detecting and responding to natural or man-made threats, managing information intensive dynamic systems and supporting lifelong learning. Of perhaps special interest to this subcommittee is research in information security. Federal agencies are funding applied research to better enable us to cope with security weaknesses in the architecture of operating systems, networks and applications, as well as fundamental research, investigating ways to improve the intrinsic security of these architectures. The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee is currently studying this area and will issue recommendations regarding Federal research investments. A specific example of the value of current Federal investment concerns Google, and it may serve to illustrate the value of this research generally. The Digital Libraries Initiative is an ongoing part of the program that has been sponsored by NSF, NASA, DARPA, and NIH. A recent article points out that Google, the search engine company that is about to issue a very significant initial public offering of stock, owes its technology directly to a Digital Libraries Initiative grant to Stanford University. Under this grant the cofounders of Google invented, developed and tested their search algorithms. My final point concerns the management of IT research. Federal research programs have benefited from talented research managers in the agencies and in funded projects. Because research deals directly with the unknown and unanticipated, it must be managed deftly. Often research failure becomes success, as intractable obstacles point the way to alternative approaches. Both Federal program managers and researchers must have good instincts regarding when to continue the proposed research and when to abandon or modify it. Structures for managing and overseeing federally funded research should allow program managers to alter projects in midcourse in response to preliminary results and need to recognize that research projects can produce valuable results even if they do not achieve their original objectives. Failure to manage deftly risks stifling creativity and innovation. The history of information technology research demonstrates the benefits of a flexible approach, and this approach is consistent with the administration's R&D investment criteria. This concludes my remarks. I thank the committee for the opportunity to testify. [The prepared statement of Dr. Nelson follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.013 Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. I would ask the remaining witnesses to please try to adhere to our 5-minute rule and check the lights on the table. Our next witness is Dr. Peter Freeman. Dr. Freeman is the assistant director for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. He was previously at Georgia Institute of Technology as professor and founding dean of the College of Computing since 1990. From 1987 to 1989 he served as division director for computer and computational research at the National Science Foundation and helped to formulate the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative of the Federal Government. In addition to his many activities as dean at Georgia Tech, he headed an NSF-funded national study of the IT worker shortage, started an active group for deans of IT and computing, and published several papers relating to future directions of the field. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon, his M.A. in mathematics and psychology from UT Austin, and his B.S. in Physics from Rice. His research and technical expertise has focused on software systems and their creation. We welcome you to the subcommittee. You are recognized. Dr. Freeman. Thank you, Chairman Putnam, Ranking Member Clay. Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon and to have the opportunity to testify before you and to discuss information technology R&D. Let me begin by clarifying some terms that I think we will all be using this afternoon. It is important to understand that the subject of today's hearing, IT R&D, is open to multiple interpretations that can lead to misunderstandings and to differences in reported activity levels. For example, it is often reported that a company spends a huge sum on IT R&D, but a closer examination almost always reveals that the vast majority of that sum is actually spent on development, not research. In the past, the term ``information technology'' was usually taken to refer to data processing activities such as payroll, accounting or inventory, not the full range of work to which the term now often refers. I would note that the Federal R&D community primarily uses the more general meaning of the term ``information technology.'' Definitions of research and development are notoriously overlapping and often lumped together. In the technical community, research generally refers to activities that produce new knowledge, while development refers to the use of existing knowledge to produce new systems, products or practices. Even these very general definitions are open to much interpretation and practice. An important distinction, however, is that research is usually targeted more broadly to longer term and must be provided a very broad and loose type of oversight, while development usually has very specific targets, has a shorter timeframe, and requires a project management type of oversight. Let me now outline two frameworks for discussing Federal activity in this area. The first separates IT from its usage. Very simply, it is often useful to differentiate between IT activity and IT-enabled activity. For example, a research project we are currently supporting at NSF, an assessment of voting technology and ballot design, seeks to provide an assessment of information technologies relative to on-line voting and ballot design. This is certainly IT research. It may lead to some IT development of, for example, better e-voting systems, but use of those systems would certainly be IT-enabled activity. The second framework that I would note is the one we use to report Federal activity in this area. The major research emphases of the NITRD effort are called program component areas, and those are spelled out in what we call the Blue Book, our annual supplement to the President's budgets. Let me now turn to the questions expressed in your letter of invitation. The first question was who is doing IT research and development? I believe, as Dr. Nelson has already indicated, at least 13 agencies or major subareas of larger agencies report work in the NITRD program that is self- identified as research. Non-U.S. Government personnel perform the majority of that work, as Dr. Nelson has indicated. There is undoubtedly additional IT research supported by the government and of course a very large amount of development, as Ranking Member Clay's opening statement made note of. The second question was where are these investments being made. I think it is fair to say that there is some amount of investment in every State, in every research university and essentially every company capable of providing research service to the U.S. Government. Your third question is what is government gaining from these investments. In general, government is gaining directly from the technical base used by our military and for streamlined governmental operations and indirectly by fostering the continuing economic revolution that provides the innovation, productivity and economic vigor for our Nation as a whole. Your fourth question was why should government continue to make those investments. I can only add that as industry often and publicly stresses, it is because federally funded research is essential to the continued advancement of IT technology. Your final question, how much is being spent by the Federal Government? I believe that within the stated caveats, the cross-cuts listed in our annual Blue Book provide a good compilation of Federal research activity in this area. In conclusion, let me thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I would ask that my fuller written statement be entered into the record. I will be glad to respond to your questions. [The prepared statement of Dr. Freeman follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.015 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.019 Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Dr. Hratch Semerjian, who is serving as Acting Director of NIST. He has served as the Deputy Director of NIST since July 2003. In this position Dr. Semerjian is responsible for overall operation of the institute, including financial management, human resource management facilities and information technology systems, effectiveness of NIST technical programs and for interactions with international organizations. Dr. Semerjian received his Master's and Ph.D. Degrees in engineering from Brown in 1977. He joined the National Bureau of Standards, now known as NIST, where he served as director of the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory from April 1992 through July 2003. He has received countless awards and we welcome him to the subcommittee today. You are recognized for 5 minutes. Dr. Semerjian. Thank you, Chairman Putnam and Ranking Member Clay. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about NIST's contributions to Federal information technology research and development. The impacts of information technology on the United States and the world economy are certainly well known. NIST plays a critical role in building trust and confidence in information technologies and development of secure, reliable and interoperable IT systems. NIST's programs help to ensure that the U.S. industry maintains the competitive advantage vis-a-vis the rest of the world while ensuring that U.S. Government information technology assets remain secure. Twenty-first century science is being pushed by continuing progress in computing information and communication technology and pulled by the expanding complexity, scope and scale of today's technological challenges. Information technology is providing the potential for the research community to build new types of scientific and engineering knowledge and to pursue research in new ways and with increased efficacy. The key to these breakthroughs is achieving the necessary functionality, interoperability, usability, confidence and data protection within the IT systems that will lead the way. NIST is at the forefront of these developments. I'd like to give you just a few highlights from our information technology program which will give you a flavor of the wide array of expertise that exists at NIST. For example, NIST ensures the security, confidentiality, integrity and availability of information by providing standards and guidelines, testing methodologies, and other Federal Information Processing Standards [FIPS], in compliance with legislation such as the Computer Security Act, the Federal Information Security Management Act and the Cyber Security Research and Development Act. NIST helps mitigate the cost of inadequate software testing, which is estimated to be around $60 billion, by developing test methodologies for software assurance and conformity to IT standards. NIST develops tests and measurement technology that keys the implementation, robust operation, and continuity of operations of the Nation's core networking infrastructure, especially to assure the robustness of the systems under various failure and recovery scenarios. NIST enables efficient access, manipulation, and exchange of complex information through advances in human language technology that enhances context extraction, question answering and speech-to-text capabilities. And NIST provides analytical, statistical and computational tools for solving scientific and engineering problems. Some of these tools, for example, are currently being used in the analysis of the World Trade Center collapse. We are also collaborating with the semiconductor industry to create a Web- based electronic handbook of statistical methods. Through these efforts, NIST has developed world class competencies in cyber security, software, networks information access, mathematics, statistics and interoperability. This bundle of competencies, combined with Nobel prize winning expertise in the physical sciences, places NIST in a unique position to create an enormous impact on the economy and innovation enterprise in the United States. It is precisely this unique capability that attracts industry and other Federal agencies to collaborate with NIST. And let me highlight some of these specific efforts where NIST's expertise is being put to direct use. For example, NIST works with industry to ensure the interoperability of technology specifications. Interoperability is essential to productivity and competitiveness of many industries because efficient design and manufacturing require the coordination of many different participants and processes that rely on a digital representation of the product. To mitigate the billion dollar annual cost just to the automotive supply chain, NIST has initiated the NIST manufacturing business-to-business operability test beds, for example. NIST assists government and industry in protection of the U.S. borders through the development of biometrics evaluation systems, standards and research. Two recent laws recognize this expertise and provide specific requirements for NIST, the U.S. Patriot Act and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act. NIST enhances trust and confidence in voting systems. The Help America Vote Act provides NIST with mandates in the areas of security, hardware and software interoperability and human factors issues. Under HAVA, NIST just recently released a study on human factors which will be used to improve the performance and reliability of voting machines. And looking more into the future, NIST makes revolutionary advances in quantum communications and computing. This is really important for the future of the country, because quantum communications offers the promise of perfectly protected messages, while quantum computing offers the promise of dramatically increased computing power. NIST also utilizes information technology for knowledge management. I think we have a knowledge-based economy, and both the creation and dissemination of knowledge is a very important part of what we do at NIST. NIST works with other Federal agencies, academia and industry to develop and promote openness and interoperability of information technology. We work with other agencies to provide expertise in our own unique areas of research to DOD, DHS, HHS, DOJ and others. We also participate in the Interagency Working Group on Information Technology R&D, and we also cooperate with industry on integrating information-based manufacturing systems and development of the measurement and standards infrastructure needed for the application of intelligence systems in manufacturing, defense and homeland security. In fiscal year 2004, the NIST Information Technology Laboratory received about $48 million in appropriated funds. In addition, ITL received about $17 million from other agencies on a reimbursable basis. These are the words with M, not the B. The President's 2005 budget request has an increase of $7 million for the NIST IT budget. In conclusion, NIST takes its roles in maintaining the vitality of the U.S. information technology industry seriously in providing unique expertise to the rest of the government and in sharing with industry, government and universities the basic science and technology that comes from its measurement and standards research. These brief examples of our work and accomplishments illustrate NIST's commitment to these roles. They also demonstrate the base upon which NIST continues to build. This concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Dr. Semerjian follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.021 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.025 Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. Our final witness for this panel is Dr. Carl Edward Oliver. Dr. Oliver is the Associate Director of the Office of Advanced Computing Research for the Office of Advanced Science at the Department of Energy. He is responsible for basic research and applied mathematics, computer science and networking needs in the Office of Science. His duties include management of the Small Business Innovative Research Program. Dr. Oliver came to DOE under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act from Sandia National Laboratories. Prior to that he was the associate laboratory director for computing robotics and education at Oak Ridge National Lab from 1995 to 2000. After receiving his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1969 as a NASA fellow from the University of Alabama, he held research and management positions at the Air Force Weapons Lab, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and DOE. He has also held teaching positions at six universities, been active on a national and international level organizing professional society meetings for numerous academic societies and has served on several university and Federal advisory committees and others under the auspices of the OSTP and the National Science Foundation. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes. Dr. Oliver. Mr. Chairman, I too commend you for holding this hearing and I appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Department of Energy's Office of Science on a matter of importance to the Nation; namely, information technology research. Dr. David Nelson and Dr. Freeman have given you some overview of the Federal IT R&D activities. I'll concentrate on those areas of the portfolio where the Office of Science focuses its efforts: High performance computing, large scale networks and software that enables scientists to use these resources as tools for scientific discovery. Ever since the inception as part of the Atomic Energy Commission immediately following World War II, the Office of Science has blended cutting edge research and innovative problem solving to keep the United States at the forefront of scientific discovery. Since the 1940's, the Office of Science supported the work of more than 40 Nobel prize winners. Research supported by the office has made major contributions to the United States in research areas such as magnetic resonance imaging, medical isotopes, composite materials used in motor vehicles and x-ray diagnostic of computer chips and other high tech materials. Other research investments have led to such innovations as the Nobel prize winning discovery of new forms of carbon, noninvasive detection of cancers and other diseases, improved computer models for understanding global climate change and new insights into the fundamental nature of matter and energy. High end computing has become an indispensable tool for researchers across the Office of Science. Large multi- disciplinary teams of researchers that combine the expertise of physicists, chemists or biologists with the expertise of computer scientists and mathematicians are working on the next generation of computational science tools that will enable the discovery and design or advance of materials for the development of catalysts that dramatically reduce the energy costs and emissions and understanding of the dynamics of combustion systems. Each of these examples and many more will have a significant effect on the missions of the Department of Energy and then the missions of other U.S. Government agencies. High performance networks play a critical role as well because they make it possible to overcome the geographical distances that often hinder science by making all the scientific resources readily available to scientists, regardless of their physical location. In this area, we work in close coordination with the National Science Foundation and university consortia such as Internet II to ensure that scientists at universities can seamlessly access unique DOE facilities and their scientific partners in DOE laboratories. To develop these tools we also work closely with other agencies. A significant part of the coordination has been described by Dr. Nelson already. In high end computing we cochaired the High End Computing Revitalization Task Force that was put together. This task force identified our Nation's critical needs in a report released in May, and they proposed a game plan to improve U.S. computing capabilities. The Office of Science and other Federal agencies are working to implement the recommendations of the task force report and to develop the next generation of supercomputing capability as well as networks needed to allow the broadest possible access to new systems. On May the 12th of this year, Secretary Spencer Abraham announced that the Department of Energy will provide $25 million in this fiscal year to a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory to begin to build a new supercomputer for scientific research. This is an important step toward achieving our leadership goals. When complete, researchers will gain the ability to understand the natural world with the precision that could only be imagined a few years ago. It's clear that working with our computing industry, we can build these tools. The administration has developed a clear path forward for revitalizing high end computing, and with vital support from the Congress and administration I am confident we will succeed. Once again, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the committee on this important matter. [The prepared statement of Dr. Oliver follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.030 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.032 Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, Dr. Oliver. I want to thank all of you for your opening statements. Your full statement is to be included in the record, and we will begin with questioning. Among these two dozen or so agencies that are coordinating or, excuse me, are engaged in Federal research, is there some collaboration across those agencies to pursue an overall strategic framework for research? Do they communicate with one another to avoid duplication or to buildupon the successes that are being found? Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? Dr. Freeman, you're nodding. We'll let you answer first. Dr. Freeman. That's fine. Thank you sir, and I think that my cochair of the NITRD working group, David Nelson, will add to whatever I may have to say. I think the answer to your question is a very definite yes in terms of coordination, in terms of knowing what each other is doing. In some cases that results in joint solicitations. For example, in the high performance computing area, we are currently coordinating, or I should say collaborating with DARPA for a jointly funded research program. We have several others in other areas already in place with DARPA. We are putting one in place with NIH, so there are a number of examples of that sort. The Interagency Working Group as a whole meets every 3 months at which representatives from all 13 of those agencies are present to review budgets, to review strategic directions and, in general, to coordinate. There are then the program coordination areas that both Dr. Nelson and I mentioned. Those smaller, more narrowly defined groups; for example, in the area of human computer interface or in the area of high confidence or secure systems, those smaller groups of program directors and program managers typically meet on a monthly basis, in some cases even on a weekly basis, because many of the primary agencies are located physically adjacent to each other. So there is a high degree of communication and collaboration there. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Nelson. Dr. Nelson. I agree with the comments of Dr. Freeman and would just add a couple of things. First, I refer to the Interagency Working Group, which Dr. Freeman and I cochair, as our board of directors. It sets the general directions and identifies special topics. About a year ago, Peter and I commissioned a study of whether the program components areas and the groups that implement them were properly constituted, and the answer that came back from them, and the Interagency Working Group has blessed it, is that in general they are, but in particular we need to focus more on security. And so we have started as a cross-cutting topic looking at how security aspects of all of our work need to be better done. It's, as you know, an extremely difficult topic. The other thing that I would add is that there's always an open door to the involvement by additional agencies and additional programs in the work of the--and I will use the acronym here--the NITRD program. So for example, we have the Federal Aviation Administration, Food and Drug Administration as observers. They don't have much research, but they do want to use what the research program produces. And we also are discussing with the Department of Homeland Security its entry in the program. So the door is always open. Information Technology Research and Development has an awful lot of small pieces. And so as Peter has said, much of the detailed work is done putting those pieces together. I mentioned before an example of research needs assessments. That's usually the first step. That's one. Another example of research needs assessment is the document that Peter just referred to, which is the Federal Plan for High-End Computing, which involved about 60 Federal managers from 12 agencies for about a year. After research needs assessments is research planning. Peter gave one example. There are many others. The agencies share reviewers: They coordinate the solicitations; and then they jointly review progress and, where necessary, make changes and of course then go through another cycle of research needs, research planning, research implementation, research review. Mr. Putnam. OK. Dr. Freeman, you said that they meet periodically to review strategic direction. Who sets the strategic objective, and could you summarize what the strategic objective is currently for Federal IT research and development. Dr. Freeman. I don't think that I or anyone is really capable of saying what the objective is. As Dr. Nelson just indicated, there is a fairly elaborate process of trying to understand the needs for future research. He mentioned some of those activities. Let me share another one with you that perhaps will illustrate the process and thereby how the overall objectives are ultimately set. Another activity that Dr. Nelson and I initiated, oh, probably a year and a half ago now, was an effort by the members of our working group to look at what are the major challenges, often called grand challenges, that would involve information technology, not on the research but at the usage end; for example, being able to seamlessly access the medical records of any citizen anywhere with appropriate privacy security, etc. It was put forth as a possible grand challenge, because we don't really know how to do that today. That working group, which worked for, oh, 6, 8 months, ultimately came back with a set of these grand challenges that, if achieved, would have great benefit for our society and for our economy. Taking those grand challenges, they then backed up and said, so what research should we be doing? So for example, security was something that was seen to be a critical component of essentially every one of those grand challenges. So, through this process, our members, the various agencies, and through other processes that are not a part of the interagency activity, because each agency has its own internal processes to bubble up these research needs, prioritization then of those research objectives will depend upon the individual agencies, upon their missions, and upon their judgments as to which of, as Dr. Nelson has indicated, the many, many objectives that one could name. So, in sum, what we wind up with is not a single strategic objective or even a coherent set of a small number. Obviously, we can boil those up to a high level and certainly security is a current high objective, I believe, of all of our members. High performance computing is another objective that is very important to many of the agencies. Ease of access to large data stores is a third objective. But I would not characterize those as forming a strategic plan in the same way that an individual company or an individual agency might have. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Oliver, a lot of attention has been paid to the fact that Japan now has the fastest supercomputer, the Earth simulator, which I believe has led the United States to reassess its high end computing R&D plans. Given where we now stand, are the existing Federal efforts appropriately targeted to deal with the challenge of positioning the United States as a leader in IT R&D, or are we losing our leadership position in this area? Dr. Oliver. I think that the formation of the High End Computing Revitalization Task Force last summer was the right step at the right time for us to articulate as a group of Federal agencies and departments how to address this problem. There were lots of meetings that were held and the report was written, and I think the implementation plan is pretty much in place or will be soon. So I think fully supporting that plan will lead us to a leadership position again. There is no doubt about it. Mr. Putnam. Mr. Clay. Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Nelson, according to the recent report on Federal R&D released by RAND, total R&D funding for colleges and universities grew from approximately $70 billion in fiscal year 1996 to $96 billion in fiscal year 2004. Yet only $2.2 billion is dedicated specifically to IT research and development through the NITRD program. Can you tell us why it is such a small percentage of the total allocation, and have no concerns with cyber security and national defense caused your office to reevaluate its support for IT R&D funding? Dr. Nelson. Yes, Congressman Clay, the priorities for research, as for any other Federal program, go through many steps and have many masters. And so addressing a question like why IT R&D is only $2 billion is almost impossible. One could equally ask why is it as big as it is. And I think, as you pointed out, it has grown substantially in recognition of its importance. I would suggest though, and I think Dr. Freeman has also mentioned this, that much of other research has information technology components. The term that's used often is it's embedded in that research, and it is almost impossible to tease out how much of that other research is information technology. But we know there is a lot there. In other words, the amount of information technology research is higher than the numbers might suggest. The second thing that I would say is I believe the RAND study pointed out that much of that increase went to medical schools and was a direct result of the doubling of the National Institutes of Health budgets, and of course that has been a national and bipartisan priority. It is good to note that much of the improvement in health care research has come about from better usage of information technology, and bioinformatics is now a thriving field. So again it's hard to tease out, and the bottom line I can give you is that there probably isn't a direct answer. We can all hope that those good research ideas are funded and that they appropriately impact our economy and way of life. But the process for arriving at it is probably beyond that of any one person to comprehend. Mr. Clay. Then another question, Doctor. Tell me about, compare the 2004 budget for Federal IT R&D to 2005. It's been reduced by about $200 million, from $2.2 billion to $2.0. Can you tell us why the amount requested was reduced? Dr. Nelson. Yes. I would like, if I could, to answer that for the record. And I will tell you why. We have a total for 2005, but because the--and I will use the term NITR&D, that's Networking and Information Technology R&D--program is what we call a crosscut, you can't get there by aggregating line items. And, therefore, it takes judgment and allocation to come up with either the total or with the subcomponents. We do not yet have the 2005 numbers for those subcomponents. And before I could address why that $200 million is approximately about 10 percent down, I would have to have a better idea of how it matches up with the program component areas that Dr. Freeman referred to, and therefore what the change is. I would be happy to respond for the record, but it may take a few weeks before we get back to you. Mr. Clay. That's fine. Thank you for that response. And Dr. Freeman, I am concerned that a large proportion of Federal R&D funds are being limited to the life sciences. Can you tell us if the IT needs of the medical and biological research communities are being met through the current formula for Federal R&D funding? Dr. Freeman. Congressman Clay, I'm afraid in the specifics, I am not competent to answer that question. Obviously, someone from NIH or the medical community should address it. I would note that through the interagency working group and our budget reviews, we are aware that NIH is spending large sums on information technology usage, more on the development and usage side of the ledger than on the underlying research. But I will have to defer to their judgment as to whether there is sufficient IT research being done in the country to support those medical efforts. Mr. Clay. OK. Then I guess asked another way. Can you cite for us what other Federal R&D needs would rival the need for life science research? Dr. Freeman. Well, certainly based on the demand through the proposal submission process at NSF, there is a very large unmet need for additional research. Let's take the cyber security area. My program director in this area is just in the process this week and next of making final decisions on something like 150 proposals that were submitted by a deadline a few weeks ago for funding specifically in the cyber security area. I have not seen the final results, but based on previous competitions, probably at least 30 to 35 percent, about a third of those proposals would be ranked by their scientific peers as worthy of funding, that is, scientifically valid. We will be lucky if we can fund 10 percent of those submitted proposals. So there is an overhang there of good ideas in the cyber security area that we are simply not going to be able to fund. I suspect that my colleague from NIST has a similar experience in that area. Mr. Clay. I will get to him. Thank you for your response. You know, you guys have long responses and long opening statements, and they give us a limited amount of time. But I appreciate your effort. Dr. Oliver, in what ways can the Office of Science collaborate with the private sector on R&D initiatives in order to find solutions to problems facing our Nation and the international community, such as environment and educational issues? Dr. Oliver. Well, we have had a long history of collaborating with the computing vendor industry in high-end computing and network and so forth. And, you know, we have cooperative research and development agreements with many of the individuals who have funding from us, especially in the DOE laboratories. And so that has tremendous benefit in many ways with the computing industry. And the wave goes out from there. We get in machines. We have often bought serial one of every high-end machine in the Department of Energy from the beginning of time. There are a few exceptions. So we get them when they are raw. They don't necessarily work. We invest in operating systems to help make this work. We do this in cooperation with other agencies, DARPA and 1-Ks or NSF in another. And so we help make a machine viable. We then put on applications software like a structural analysis code and make it work on the machine. That makes it attractive to the aerospace companies and so forth. So there is a dramatic effect like that where we work with industry, you know, to help in the economic sense. And, but we do it to serve our own needs. I mean, we have to make these machines work in order to meet the missions of the Office of Science to do science. Mr. Clay. Thank you. And, finally, Dr. Semerjian. Are there specific areas of IT R&D that the government is currently not pursuing but merit consideration in future strategic plans? Dr. Semerjian. Well, that is a very broad question. Probably some of my colleagues are better prepared to answer that. But just from our own point of view, the kind of things that we do at NIST, I think I agree with Dr. Freeman that cyber security issues I think really need to be addressed. Because in every application area that we look at, whether it's the medical records or whether it's communication issues and national security issues, cyber security continues to be at the top of the list of issues, which is clearly underfunded. And I think we are very pleased that the President's budget proposes to increase the NIST part of that. But that is only a drop in the bucket. I am sure there are many other security- related issues in other agencies which need to be addressed. Mr. Clay. Thank you for your response. I thank the panel for their indulgence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Clay. I just want to followup a bit on the coordination line of questioning. To what degree are the classified and unclassified research initiatives coordinated? If you take cyber security, for example, it's certainly broader than NIST and NSF. You have an alphabet soup of agencies within the intelligence community who are also doing work. Do they share some of their direction on research as well, or is that a world unto itself? Dr. Nelson. Dr. Nelson. I can speak to the relationship between the classified world and the unclassified. I personally have high security clearances, but the NITRD program is totally unclassified. Now, I believe there is reasonably good coordination between the classified side and the unclassified. And I will say how that occurs. Several of the agencies that participate in the NITRD program, in particular the National Security Agency, the National Nuclear Security Agency, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, bring their unclassified research to the table and work closely with agencies like NSF, NIST, DOE science, and so on to get the best bang for the buck out of that. Now, clearly, they take those results back into the classified side, and the NITRD program does not see those. I am aware that there are coordinating groups that deal with classified research, in particular, the Infosec Research Council. But I do not know whether that is broadly the case. I could mention another agency or two that interacts with us on an informal basis, the Central Intelligence Agency, and as I said earlier, we are talking seriously with the Department of Homeland Security about their joining the program. So, indeed, there is coordination. As it comes through the boundary between classified and unclassified, I'm less knowledgeable about what goes on behind the classification screen. Mr. Putnam. So Homeland Security is not currently a part of this NITRD program? Dr. Nelson. That's correct. Mr. Putnam. And what is it that needs to be decided to allow them to participate? Dr. Nelson. As you know, they have been forming up. And bringing all those subagencies together has been a monumental task. So the short answer is they are still working on their research agenda. They are still getting staffed up to carry out that research agenda. And I fully expect that as soon as they have people who are able to work--coordination takes time, it takes people--that they will join. Mr. Putnam. Well, I certainly expect them to get ramped up and be a part of it as soon as possible. They are an important piece, and they are a relatively new agency, but they are no longer a new agency and that excuse only carries you so long. Dr. Nelson. Yes, sir. Dr. Semerjian. If I could add on the classified versus unclassified issue. We do have a close working relationship with NSA. It is formally recognized that NIST provides the standards for the unclassified world, so to speak, and NSA for the classified. And we do work closely with them, since some of the technologies are utilized on both sides of the fence. So at least in terms of standard issues, cyber security-related standards, we have a very good working relationship with NSA. Mr. Putnam. Good. I want to give all of you the opportunity, because we were cut short on the opening statements, but we have another panel that we need to move to. I want to give any or all of you, if you have something that you wish to add to this conversation, something you wish you had been asked, now is the time. So we will begin with Dr. Oliver, work backward, and then we will seat the second panel. Dr. Oliver, anything to add? Dr. Oliver. Nothing to add. Dr. Semerjian. (Shaking head.) Mr. Putnam. Dr. Freeman. Dr. Freeman. A former professor always has another word. One topic we have not discussed today is the issue of education. That is one that, of course, NSF has a key responsibility in. And I would note that it is also a key element in both the research and certainly the development aspects of information technology, to say nothing of the utilization of it. I think that your opening statement, Congressman Clay's opening statement very aptly recognize the importance of information technology in essentially every element of our life today. And I would only add that we must keep in mind that educating all of our citizens at all levels of the work force, all the way down to kindergartners, in the usage of that technology is a key challenge that we need to keep in sight. Mr. Putnam. Let me followup on that and ask you, as someone who has come out of the academic world. Many of us are familiar with and very concerned about the decline in math and science skills among America's young people, the number of degrees being awarded to Americans in a number of these sensitive fields. I am not asking you for a silver bullet, but what are the steps that we can begin to take to turn that around and produce more math and science graduates? Dr. Freeman. I'm glad you didn't ask for the silver bullet, because I certainly don't have it and I'm not sure that I have all of the steps. But it is something, and the reason I bring it up here is it is a topic that I believe we must first and foremost always keep in mind. So it is important, of course, to look at funding levels at the substance of the research, but we must be mindful that we have to have the educated people to carry out that research, for example. So I think the attention of committees such as yours to the educational issues, the attention of all of us as citizens is certainly a first and a very necessary step to take. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Oliver, I believe in some of your responsibilities at the Department of Energy, do you have a hard time filling slots in the Office of Science? Do you have a hard time recruiting good people who want to work for the government doing this type of research? Dr. Oliver. You have done your homework. Yes, it is, in many areas, very difficult to get program managers to come and work in D.C., though I tout the city as the greatest place to live in the country in opportunities and everything. I mean, I think we have a terrific, you know, organization. And the jobs are truly exciting. And I find that it's just getting more and more difficult in our area and I don't know why. Maybe industry salaries are high, academic salaries are very high for people in computer science, applied math, that know about high-end computing, in tremendous demand, and I think maybe the pool is a little small. I mean, it's the supply and-demand situation. Anyway, it's very difficult for us to get people in the Office of Science. And we have a very important challenge facing us because I think we are an aging group, not just in information technology, but throughout the program management staff. And it's something we are aware of and that we are trying to address, and we are looking at all of the things that you can do, knobs you can turn. But it is indeed a challenge. So we have a lot of people with a lot of dual jobs, dual-hatted, but they rise to the occasion. Mr. Putnam. Thank you. Dr. Nelson, final comment? Dr. Nelson. Yes. Just one footnote in the planning and management area. We can always do a better job of strategic planning, no question of that. But we have to remember that in research, it's often the least planned and the least unexpected that yields the biggest dividends. Who would have thought that the high performance computing program would produce the Mosaic browser, and yet it was the NSF program at the University of Illinois that did just that. Who would have thought that an early program to link academic computers would have produced the Internet? But it did just that. And so in research we always look for the revolutionary change, the things that really improve the economy in the country. It's hard to plan those. And, as I mentioned in my testimony, management of those activities has to be very deft and sensitive. It's very easy to stamp out the revolutionary and it's very hard to encourage it. Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. And I want to thank the entire panel. And, with that, the subcommittee will stand in recess while we arrange for panel two. And if you would be seated as soon as possible. Thank you, gentlemen, very much for your contributions to this hearing. If the second panel could please take their seats, we will begin. The subcommittee will reconvene. And if you would please rise, and anyone accompanying you who will assist you in answering the questions please rise for the administration of the oath. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that all of our witnesses responded in the affirmative. And we will move to the testimony. You will note the lights on your table. Green light means talk away. Yellow light means bring it in for a landing. Red light means bring it to a close. Our first witness is Dr. Donna Fossum. Dr. Fossum is a senior scientist and legal policy analyst in the RAND Resource Management Department, and is program manager of the RaDiUS Project. Prior to joining RAND, Dr. Fossum served as the legal counsel and technology specialist of the Committee of Government Operations here in the House of Representatives. Dr. Fossum has also served as the deputy associate administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in OMB, where she devoted much of her time to advising the administrator for Federal procurement policy on matters involving the defense industrial base. Most recently, she served as the senior adviser for science resources development at NSF. Dr. Fossum's work for the institute has centered on developing a comprehensive data base of the R&D activities sponsored by the Federal Government known as RaDiUS, to facilitate the management and content assessment of the Federal R&D portfolio. Much of her time is also devoted to working with OSTP and other Federal agencies as well as numerous nonFederal entities to identify and evaluate Federal activities in every conceivable field of R&D. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENTS OF DONNA FOSSUM, MANAGER, RADIUS PROJECT, RAND CORP.; EDWARD LAZOWSKA, CO-CHAIR, PRESIDENT'S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY COMMITTEE AND CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON; WILLIAM SCHERLIS, PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT CARNEGIE MELLON; AND STEPHEN SQUIRES, CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER, VICE PRESIDENT, HEWLETT-PACKARD Dr. Fossum. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have submitted a long statement for the record, so I will make it very short and summarize it. First I want to express my sincere appreciation for the hearing today, because this is a topic that often gets overlooked and, yet it is at the heart of everybody's life and becoming more so. Let me explain a little bit about the RaDiUS program and why it even came to be. In 1992, we were supporting the work of the White House in science and technology, and discovered that the data that everybody wanted or needed to find out what was going on in the world of Federal R&D and on various topics, we didn't have at the right level of granularity. It was at the program level, which wasn't adequate to answer their questions. For instance, they wanted to know what was going on in electronics, preventing violence in youth, automotive-related technologies, global positioning, aviation safety, etc. And this is where RaDiUS was born. RaDiUS systemically tracks all the R&D dollars that are identified by Federal agencies as being R&D and tracks them through the layers of the bureaucracy down to where they are actually spent--where I say ``the rubber hits the road.'' And this is where the R&D is actually conducted. Courtesy of the RaDiUS data system, we now have a capability that is used extensively by many of the agencies in the Federal Government many Federal contractors, universities, and others all over the world to learn what R&D is being supported by the USG. Actually we have discovered there is very little duplication of R&D in the Federal Government, but there are many, many opportunities where leveraging of Federal R&D dollars is not happening. Agencies in the same red area don't even know it, but through RaDiUS, they can find out they are working in the same field and can leverage their dollars more effectively. RaDiUS, in 1998, was declared a ``best practice'' of the U.S. Government by the General Accounting Office. Courtesy of RaDiUS, RAND has been able to produce two reports. ``Discovery & Innovation'' has been called a chest crusher by one of our colleagues. What it provides is the first compendium ever of all the Federal R&D activities by State and city in the country. Where is it happening and what are they doing? This was done in 2000. It's time to be updated but a whole lot of it has not changed all that much. Where it's happening has not changed. I will leave a copy of it with you. And already today this report that came out a couple of months ago has been cited, ``Vital Assets.'' It contains the first really accurate assessment of where all the Federal dollars are going to universities around the country. This kind of capability has been developed, courtesy of RaDiUS. But that's not what the topic of today's hearing is. You have gone through a wonderful list of questions to which we would all like the answers, but the one question that has been hinted at briefly by some of the people here that I want to focus on, which is a pivotal question in this area, is ``What is IT R&D?''--because IT itself has evolved so tremendously in the last 30 to 40 years, and the R&D associated with it has evolved right with it. For instance, initially IT was just physical components. We were building hardware. We were looking at the mathematical equations that could be used for pulling data together and manipulating it. At the beginning, that was IT R&D--physical components. And there's still a lot of that R&D work going on. As it evolved over time, IT R&D got into new applications and the new infrastructures. This is where you started spawning software and other applications like data bases. Once you put it together with infrastructure, applications, design, and development, what you have are all kinds of ramifications and potentials that had never been thought of in the very early days. So what I've provided in my written testimony is a template of essentially four definitions of IT R&D. One is very narrow, which is physical components. And another is quite broad, as it includes information technology functionalities, information technology applications and infrastructure, and the capabilities enabled by information technology. And since we are the data people, we wanted to give you some hard numbers to grab on to. So what is the Federal Government spending in IT R&D? If you take a narrow definition of IT R&D as physical components, and run it through the RaDiUS data system, we come up with the fact that there was about $1.5 billion of IT R&D. And this is a very conservative estimate. This is for just the physical components. If you broaden the definition to include everything, all four aspects, again, very conservatively, it's over $11 billion. That's about 12 percent of the Federal R&D budget. By the way, we are only talking about the ``Conduct of R&D'' when we talk about this information. Keep in mind that one of the biggest sources of confusion when we talk about R&D numbers in the Federal Government is often they include ``R&D facilities'' as well as ``R&D equipment.'' That doesn't get you the ``conduct of R&D.'' So in RaDiUS we only focus on the actual conduct of R&D work. That's what these numbers are. So you have a narrow definition and a broad one. What we cannot tell you is whether this is valuable research. We can tell you what it is and if it is meeting objectives of the Federal agencies. We can give you information on it. We can tell you what's going on. Let me give you a hint about some of this. Keep in mind, the major agency doing R&D in IT is DOD by far. In the narrow definition, the No. 2 agency is DOE. In the broad definition, it's HHS. You have all kinds of players here. NASA is a major player. You have NSF, and the Department of Agriculture. Every part of the Federal R&D community is working somehow in IT-related activities. Let me give you a little idea of who is doing what. Mr. Putnam. If you would, if you could summarize it. We have a vote at 3:15, and I want to get through testimony before they ring the bells. Dr. Fossum. OK. You've got it. I will just submit this to the record. But let's suffice it to say that people are working at DOD on everything from dealing with strike aircraft to virtual battlefields. At HHS, they are doing R&D on wireless EKG chips. They are doing all kinds of R&D all over the government dealing with IT. And we are here as the tool that can tell you what's going on where and help to better coordinate it. Thank you so much. [The prepared statement of Dr. Fossum follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.034 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.044 Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Dr. Edward Lazowska. Dr. Lazowska is professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science and engineering at the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1977. He has been at the University of Washington since that time. His research concerns the design and analysis of distributed and parallel computer systems. He is a member of the NSF, CISE advisory committee, Chair of the Computing Research Association, and member of DARPA ISAT, and a member of the technical advisory board for Microsoft research. He is a member of the NRC's computer, science, and telecom board, and served on the CSTB committee that produced evolving the high performance computing and communications initiative to support the Nation's information infrastructure. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the ACM and of the high Triple E. He is a leader in the Learning Federation, a group that is concerned with using information technology to improve learning at the college level. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes. I would ask all of you to please hold tight on the 5, because there will be a vote at 3:15. Thank you. Dr. Lazowska. Thank you very much, Mr. Putnam, and the other members of your subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be here to testify today. As you said in your introductory remarks, much of the gains in productivity in the U.S. economy over the past decade, the really unprecedented gains throughout the 1990's, have been shown to be due to efficiencies produced through information technology. And IT and its advances are driving advances in all fields of science and engineering. So what your subcommittee is asking is, how does that happen? And the abstract answer is it's a complex ecosystem that involves companies and universities and the Federal Government. It's been working for 50 years. The United States is the world leader in innovation in information technology today because of some formula that none of us can quite get our hands around but that fundamentally seems to work. So it has been a 50-year story of success. Every aspect of IT that we rely on today, every billion dollar subindustry, traces part of its origins to the federally funded university-based research program. You have a two-page handout of my remarks today. And on the second page is a little eye testing graph, which I won't try to describe to you now, but this is from a National Academy study that Dr. Nelson referred to. And what it shows is two dozen different billion dollar subcategories of the IT industry. And for each one, it shows the complimentary roles of university research funded by the Federal Government, industrial R&D, and product development, becoming a billion dollar industry. So the interplays are very complex, and there have been authoritative studies of this. But the key thing for you to understand is the role that the Federal research program has played in all of these technologies. I am fond of saying if you want to do E-commerce, you have to have a Internet, you've got to have Web browsers, you've got to have high performance data base systems, graphical user interfaces, public key cryptography for secure credit card transactions. All of those are results of the federally sponsored research program. In planning policy--and a point that Dr. Freeman made very clearly--it is important not to confuse industry R&D with research that's looking 5 or 10 or 15 years out. And here is just a concrete example. I'm on the technical advisory board for Microsoft Research. Microsoft advertises that it will spend $6.8 billion on R&D this year. OK. Of that $6.8 billion, only a couple hundred million is Microsoft Research, the organization that I advise. $6.6 billion is engineering the next release of Word and Excel and Power Point and Windows. This is really important. But that's done by taking ideas out of the R&D larder and putting them into products. It's engineering the next generation of the product. Now, it sounds like I'm castigating Microsoft, but I'm not. In fact, on the contrary, Microsoft invests about 5 percent of its R&D budget in activities looking out five or 10 or 15 years. Dell, Oracle, Cisco invest essentially nothing looking more than one product cycle out. HP has a representative on this panel and HP does look more than one product cycle out in a style not unlike Microsoft. So does Intel. But many of the major IT companies don't look more than one product cycle out at all. And that's what defines our future, what makes sure that we are going to be a leader 5 and 10 and 15 years out. You heard from Dr. Freeman that another important characteristic of the Federal research program is that it produces people. A second graph on my handout is the Department of Commerce work force projections for the next 10 years for various fields of science and engineering. And what it shows is a huge work force gap in information technology compared to any other field of science and engineering. The Department of Commerce projects that more than three quarters of all the jobs that will have to be filled in all of science and engineering in the next 10 years are IT jobs. Recent increases in support for IT research have been important but have fallen far short of the levels recommended by the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. Mr. Clay observed a disconnect in funding choices made by agencies. The third graph in my materials shows the increase in the government supported R&D budget over the past 30 years. And you see that the vast majority of that is increases in the National Institutes of Health. Every other field is essentially flatlined, although IT R&D has doubled over that period, you can't see the increase on a scale that includes health and human services. My response to your question asked of another witness about HHS IT R&D is that largely what they do is take innovations that DARPA and the National Science Foundation have funded and apply them to biomedical problems, as opposed to investing in fundamental IT research. There are exceptions, you will hear about the NIH bioinformatics program, but that's a few tens of millions of dollars new this year out of a $30-plus billion budget. So one other point that I would make is there are, as you heard, 13 or more Federal agencies investing in IT R&D. I think if you look at the history of innovation, it is NSF and DARPA, with work from Energy in high performance computing, that have driven the lion's share of the innovations. A couple more points and then I will conclude. The research community has concerns with the low level of funding for the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate. That budget has gone up in recent years, but the research budget there is still only a bit more than $400 million. We have concerns about---- Mr. Putnam. If you could bring it in for a landing, please, sir. Dr. Lazowska. Sure. We have concerns about DHS's failure to invest in cyber security R&D. DHS began a year ago with a new $800 million research budget and proposed allocating $7 million of that to cyber security. That is simply a failure to understand the threat posed by cyber terrorism. And it's not that E-Bay goes down so you and I can't buy stuff; it is that computers are in the control loop of every element of the Nation's critical infrastructure. So if you want to attack the electric power grid, you go after the control systems. So it's a serious issue. Summary. The track record is clear, the Federal R&D investment has stimulated America's world leadership, our economic boom, our boom in all science and engineering. Current levels of Federal investment in IT R&D continue to be dangerously low. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Dr. Lazowska follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.053 Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. You all are really opening up some fascinating pieces for us to explore on questioning. Our next witness is Dr. William L. Scherlis. Dr. Scherlis is a professor in the school of computer science at Carnegie Mellon and a member of CMU's International Software Research Institute. He is the founding director of CMU's Ph.D. program in software engineering. He is principle investigator of the 5- year high dependability computing project with NASA in which CMU leads the collaboration with five universities to help NASA address long-term software dependability. His research relates to software assurance, software evolution, and technology to support software teams. He first joined the CMU faculty in 1980, after completing a Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University and an A.B. at Harvard. He interrupted his career at CMU to serve at DARPA for 6 years, departing in 1993, as senior executive responsible for coordination of software research. While at DARPA, he had responsibility for research in strategy and computer security, high performance computing, information infrastructure, and other topics that we would be shot if we disclosed. He has served as program chair for a number of technical conferences including the ACM Foundations of Software Engineering Symposium, and he has more than 70 scientific publications. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized. Dr. Scherlis. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman and members, I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss R&D for information technology. I'm going to make the case to you that strategic Federal IT R&D is now more important than before, and that we need proactive leadership to move it forward. We rely on IT systems pervasively in our economy for national security, for health care, and for the operations and safety of our infrastructure. The industry and research community have made rapid progress in the capability, performance, and interconnection of IT systems. But despite this rapid progress, software and IT generally remain immature as engineering disciplines. We continue to struggle with quality challenges related to cyber security and software dependability. We do not yet know how to achieve high levels of quality in critical systems without huge sacrifices in capability and flexibility and huge costs to test and inspect. For both cyber security and software dependability we are not in a good state. In cyber security, our stop gaps of firewalls, spam filters, intrusion detection and the like are not slowing the growth in exploits and vulnerabilities. This is a chart from the CERT that indicates the number of incidents that have been reported year over year. We are not succeeding in evaluation and validation. The Common Criteria ISO 15408, for example, does not yield guarantees regarding an absence of malicious code. In software dependability, we cannot in general make strong promises on the basis of testing and inspection. The coverage is not good enough. We supplement this by looking at how the code was developed and who did it. But these are poor proxies. We cannot, in general, fully evaluate software artifacts directly. Even when we can see every line of code, we cannot make promises about the systems we build. It is tempting to conclude that this bad state is intrinsic to IT; that things are the way they will be--for example, that because we get e-mail, we will also get huge volumes of spam. Or, that we are at a plateau--the pace of innovation is slowing down, the 1990's are over. Or, that the sheer mass of the deployed base will inhibit any fundamental change--can we switch the entire country over to drive on the left-hand side of the road? These conclusions are counter to the historical truth of IT for the past 40 years. There has been a constant technology revolution under the hood in operating systems, data bases, client server architectures, networking, languages, and so on. The research community, the successful IT companies and their customers all know how to handle this pace of change because they have been doing it for so long. In many areas, it is happening right now. But not in the most critical areas related to quality. We are almost complacent with our extreme vulnerability. However, there is reason to hope for the future. There are promising research results in the pipeline that bear on these major challenges. For example, more secure network protocols and services. Improved identity and authorization management. Techniques for the direct evaluation of software. Securable architectures for resilient designs. Given this, it's tempting to think that with the large R&D budgets the IT industry will take care of this and the government can step back. And this is wrong. Part of that historical truth of the past 40 years is that the Federal Government has consistently been an active player and leader in that process. And I'm going to give you four reasons why, and these reasons have to do with why industry does not in general look beyond more than one or two product cycles out. First, many of the most significant research results that bear on IT quality are nonappropriable. That means that their value diffuses rapidly across the market. It cannot be retained, it becomes a public good. Only government is going to sponsor this work. Bill Gates, for example, talks about a tool that is now used to reduce the frequency of blue screens. This tool is based on technologies that were developed a decade ago by my university colleagues and sponsored by NSF and DARPA: binary decision diagrams and model checking. Second, the early definition of standards has a particularly significant role in IT. This is the so-called prenormative work most vividly illustrated by the role of the IETF in the early days of the Internet and the role of the W3C more recently. The world of E-commerce is held together by standards such as TCP, IP, XML, HTTP, and so on. Third, government is a major IT consumer. It needs to collaborate with its entire simply chain, just like the auto industry. Long ago, DARPA exerted profound influence on networking and operating systems and processor design to create an amazingly scalable foundation for network centric warfare and modern command and control generally. It worked directly with the vendors, the innovators, and the researchers throughout the DOD supply chain. And, four, the main input to the IT food chain is university research and education. Without the people and expertise and the innovative attitude, we have nothing. There is another reason. IT innovation leadership is pivotal to the future of our country. I'm here from Pittsburgh. We can argue about the strategic necessity of leadership in steel or in consumer electronics, but IT innovation leadership is different. We cannot give it up. It's a driver of productivity, as Alan Greenspan has noted. It is a principal force multiplier in defense. And, perhaps most importantly, we still see no bounds on the potential for creating new value, new kinds of capability and cognitive powers. The frontier of innovation will continue to exist well beyond the frontier of commoditization. It will be our future for a long time. My conclusion is that we need proactive Federal R&D leadership. We need both basic science and mission motivated Federal R&D in order to retain our leadership position and to address the new challenges that we face. In the public private partnerships--the collaborations of industry, academia, and government--the government must be a full partner. I appreciate the opportunity to appear today. Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Dr. Scherlis. [The prepared statement of Dr. Scherlis follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.062 Mr. Putnam. Dr. Squires, you are going to have a few moments to collect your thoughts to defend HP's honor with regard to your R&D budgeting. We are going to recess for a moment while we go have one vote. It should be a fairly brief recess, and we will return shortly. So everybody sit tight, enjoy your orange juice. And the subcommittee will stand in recess. [Recess.] Mr. Putnam. The subcommittee will reconvene. I apologize for the delay. Our final witness for this panel is Dr. Stephen Squires. Dr. Squires is the chief science officer and vice president at Hewlett-Packard. He is also a Special Government Employee Expert Consultant for the Department of Defense through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA]. In that role he is a member of the Intelligence Science Board and also served on the Defense Science Task Force on Defense Roles and Missions for Homeland Security and other special working groups. Previously, he worked for NSA for 15 years on IT systems. We look forward to your testimony. You are recognized, Dr. Squires. Dr. Squires. Thank you for inviting me to testify. I consider it an honor and a privilege to be here to discuss these critical issues. I want to focus on one main issue which was in the letter that invited me, and that issue is how the investments serve to protect this Nation and position the United States as a leader in the information technology arena. My answer to this critical question is based upon my understanding of the history of IT, my own direct experience and expertise in the most advanced research and development application programs focused on the most challenging problems facing the Nation, and my own vision of the future. The best way I can think of starting is to reference a paper titled ``As We May Think'' by Vannevar Bush in July 1945. It was written in his role as Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, coordinating activities of some 6,000 leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. You should actually take a look at this article. It presents an extraordinary vision filled with all kinds of interesting examples, including one example called the ``memex,'' which is essentially the Internet with a web of linked objects. The history of information technology is dominated by fundamental devices from the invention of the transistor, the integrated circuit, and the microprocessor, along with many other devices for the past 50 years and an extraordinary collection of systems developed through multiple layers of modules, structures, and massive amounts of software to support a wide range of applications. Information technology has become increasingly pervasive. It is hard to imagine life without it. Our national defense, homeland security, depend on it, in addition to our critical infrastructure, the economy, and the future of science and technology. IT industry and its applications have become a multitrillion dollar sector of the global economy that is recognized as enabling a new global dynamic. Information technology as generally viewed today appears to be a commodity, but it is not. The larger IT companies claim to have multibillion dollar R&D programs, which they do. But it is also very important to understand the operating point and the time horizon of those programs. It is natural for many people familiar with normal technologies to believe that there has been more than enough U.S. investment in the future of information technology and enough is enough. Let me say now in the strongest possible terms that I believe that such a belief is fundamentally misguided and in my opinion dangerous. The entire field has been through multiple revolutions and extraordinary advances that have been made across a wide range of science and technology areas. But with all of these advances and all of this investment in the past 50 years, we are really only at the beginning of a much longer process. As the limits of what have become conventional integrated circuits are reached, new technologies with its revolutionary implications are emerging at the atomic scale in the form of nano-technologies. New nano-devices can be integrated into new kinds of things such as new kinds of nano-integrated circuits with extraordinary properties, and properties that go beyond just computing to include new kinds of storage, sensors, effectors, and new ways to act with the physical world, including biological. The advances in these new devices will enable new kinds of modules, new kinds of units of replication, and present new challenges, challenges which simply will not be overcome by conventional industrial R&D. These, the new kinds of systems which we can imagine happening and emerging over the next 50 years, or even the next 10 or 20 years, will be far more dramatic than anything we have seen in the last 50. Let me just give you some examples of the role of information technology that go beyond normal market trends: The role of information technology in things like critical infrastructure of the country, in science and technology itself, in national defense, homeland security, trusted information sharing, protecting individual privacy, and the most important of all, protecting the future of civilization. Let me briefly sketch four alternative futures. I'm just going to call them red, orange, yellow, green in the context of an idealistic vision, blue. Red is essentially pre-Internet technology. Orange is essentially an attempt to extend the red to cope with the emerging Internet revolution. Yellow is essentially an attempt to apply commercial Internet technology to the challenges of the Internet. And green is essentially the development of fundamentally more advanced technology than commercial Internet technology for the purpose of achieving strategic advantage. Such systems have more advanced cybersecurity than the commercial Internet. And then all of this is set in the context of blue, which is an idealistic vision of the future which I call ``intrinsic trust'' and that is the essential distinguishing characteristic of the fundamental advance needed for the future of information systems themselves. The most challenging problems provide insight needed to establish the most effective advanced research agendas. The ideal of blue is essential to guide the advanced research agenda for green. Given its own market forces, the information technology system will simply be stuck on the yellow brick road. The insights needed to create effective advanced research agendas emerge from interdisciplinary interaction among science, business, homeland security and national defense. The interactions are more critical because the need for public- private systems to interoperate over a wide range of modes are all dependent upon critical and pervasive interoperable information systems capable of trusted information sharing while protecting privacy. I believe it is essential that the U.S. Government continue to invest in advanced research and information technology focused on protecting this Nation and ensuring that the United States continues to be the world leader in information technology. The future leadership depends upon continuing advances in science and technology at a time when information technology itself is not only becoming critical and pervasive but itself going through its own reinvention process. Mr. Putnam. Does that conclude your remarks? Dr. Squires. Yes. Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, and I apologize for making you wait. [The prepared statement of Dr. Squires follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.069 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.071 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.074 Mr. Putnam. We will begin with the questions; and I will begin with you, Dr. Squires. Given that there will always be a finite amount of money available for Federal research and development, are we prioritizing the use of that funding in the most efficient manner? Dr. Squires. I don't think efficiency is the way to think of it. If you try to optimize the systems so that there is minimum duplication and maximum efficiency, you are very likely to lose the most interesting and innovative system that the world will see. It is all right for the innovation process of the national R&D agenda to be slightly loose and informal. You always need the flexibility for a bright young mind to come up with a new idea without having to go through a long-drawn-out proposal process. Start soon. The other thing is I think that there's a general structure that I've found that is useful in trying to set research agendas and that is to focus on the fundamental technology trends, understand their fundamental limits, and when you begin to identify a limit, look as hard as you can for effective alternatives. If you take a look at every major advance in information technology, you discover that it is a result of that process. Mr. Putnam. As someone who transcends the public and private sector, is there adequate collaboration between the two? Dr. Squires. There is a lot of collaboration, but I don't think it's adequate, and I will give you the main barriers. I think that the mechanisms in place for setting agendas and for holding full and open competitions and for negotiating the actual agreements takes too long. It is way too burdensome and actually tends to be a disincentive to people and individuals and universities and companies, my own personal opinion, working in that way. The phrase that I sometimes use in discussions like this, and I say our adversaries do not have the advantage of our procurement system. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Fossum, do small startups and smaller universities with less well-established research relationships with the Federal Government, startup companies that have a great idea born in a garage, do they receive adequate attention, adequate opportunity to compete with the big, well- established companies that are out there? Dr. Fossum. In theory, yes. Is it a level playing field on paper? Yes. But there's an awful lot of networking, connections, and experience that go into knowing how you actually successfully get a grant proposal through and how you actually go through a procurement and become a participating competitor, so to speak. I think it is a very large threshold for some to get across. Actually, when you mention universities, there are over 1,800 4-year accredited colleges and universities and professional schools in this country, and only 80 of them receive 71 percent of the Federal funds for R&D. It shows you the concentration of these funds. It is an enormously concentrated world. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Lazowska, is that a concern, the concentration? Dr. Lazowska. I think equity and distribution and participation is always a concern. But I think the numbers that were just cited need to be interpreted in light of the fact that many of those 1,800 4-year schools do not purport to have a research program. They are purely educational institutions. So we need to make sure that research funds are equitably distributed to those best positioned to carry out the work. And I think Federal agencies do a reasonable job of that. There are also programs that ensure adequate research funding to States that don't have perhaps a full complement of research institutions. In terms of prioritization, I would just remark that the PITAC committee in 1999 did a fairly thorough analysis and concluded that the Federal investment in IT R&D, compared to other fields, was dangerously inadequate; and they proposed a ramp-up which has not been nearly met. In fact, as Mr. Clay pointed out, the NITRD funding will actually decrease in the proposed budget. So I think many Members of Congress are coming to the conclusion that the Federal R&D portfolio has become unbalanced. Perhaps that doesn't mean we're investing too much in some areas, but it means we're investing too little in others, and you have identified a number of them today. Mr. Putnam. The imbalance being toward the biological science and CDC, health? Dr. Lazowska. I would say the imbalance is against information technology. If you look at the role IT plays in national security, in advancing the sciences, in driving our economy, we are investing a relatively tiny amount of Federal money in creating the next generation of advances. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Scherlis, do you have anything would you like to add going to this? Dr. Scherlis. I guess I would. Your first question to Dr. Squires was concerning prioritization within the R&D portfolio, and I think it's worth clarifying a little bit from the outside my understanding of the NITRD process. It is not a top-down process. It involves a combination of vision and mission. The mission agencies who are collaborators within the NITRD process identify their needs and priorities on an agency mission basis. This is combined with input from the research community, who drive the process on the basis of their invention and imagination and desire to explore. It's the juxtaposition of those two things that really creates the innovative magic that several of my colleagues have spoken of earlier in this hearing. Mr. Putnam. Is the allocation of R&D skewed too heavily to defense and defense-related research? Dr. Scherlis? Dr. Scherlis. Actually, it's interesting, the history of IT in this country has a history that's really largely been driven by a combination of Defense and the National Science Foundation. It is a combination of those two organizations. And it has been interesting growing up in IT to see that IT researchers and scholars have adopted defense metaphors. They speak in terms of survivability and command and control. DOD has had a profound influence; and, as a consequence of that, the mission needs of defense have been very well met through the research community. This has worked well because of the very farsighted, broad attitude of the DOD basic science investors, those who invest 6-1 and 6-2 funds in the R&D world. It's the supply chain management story. They work throughout the supply chain, not just with the prime contractors and the systems integrators but with the vendors and the innovators and the inventors who feed that supply chain. They do it in a way that provides value well beyond the defense mission. There is a leverage in that story. The leverage is that DOD is able to buy off-the-shelf components and systems that they can apply directly in their mission. We have pervasive applications, spreadsheets, word processors, operating systems; and these are increasingly incorporated as components into systems. They are pervasive not just in our offices and homes but also in our national infrastructure and critical national security systems. So what has happened is that the pervasive systems have become critical. This is an inevitable and positive outcome. It's the nature of IT that we have come to this point. It makes these problems, in some ways, much more significant and challenging. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Fossum. Dr. Fossum. I think one of the questions that you raise is about what is defense R&D. We don't really know how to divide R&D. R&D doesn't know a home agency or a discipline. It can go across all kinds of areas. Let me give you an example. I happened to be at the Army 1 day talking to a gentleman there whom I literally asked ``What is your major technology challenge?'' And he said they needed a ``miniature, long-life, anticorrosive fuel cell'' to put in every piece of equipment they deployed in the field. And we put in the term RaDiUS-- ``fuel cell'' into RaDiUS and got hits in six or seven different agencies including NIH. We shortly were looking at an actual description of ``miniature, long-life, anticorrosive fuel cell'' research at NIH for the artificial heart. That is why it is very hard to talk in terms of ``health'' research versus ``defense'' research. R&D doesn't know boundaries like that. Discovery doesn't recognize those boundaries. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Squires. Dr. Squires. One thing I'd like to add to what Dr. Scherlis mentioned is the fact that throughout the history of advanced research in science and technology leading to advanced products there's a pattern that having people able to understand and focused on the hardest problems of the time with the resources and flexibility to solve those problems is what leads to great invention. You don't make great advances by looking at the easy problem. You don't make great advances by doing what everybody else is doing. You make great advances by going beyond what you normally can think of doing and trying to invest the future. It turns out that because of the nature of the American system, the American economy, the role of defense in the United States and around the world, the defense and national security system, the homeland security system of the country has among the most challenging problems for information technology and science. It's just a fact, and that is a tremendous source of insight and motivation, and the people who make the investments and set up the research agendas normally do it in such a way that the technologies are as much as possible dual use. Because it doesn't do you much good to have an advanced technology if you can't afford it. So it's a very subtle, complicated and important relationship between the public sector, the private sector, the civil agencies in the government, the National Security Agencies, and the government how that works in the community. Mr. Putnam. Clearly, it is an important role for defense to play in research; and it's allowed us to be on the cutting edge. Frankly, it is something to be very proud of. But it's just interesting to think about the breadth of research that occurs in the name of defense, whether it is an MRE in food preservation or it is training a dolphin to go seek out a mine and everything in between that leads us to things like the Internet, things like GPS that are now in every brand-new suburban sold and all of these other things. Dr. Scherlis. Dr. Scherlis. One of the reasons why it is important to focus on mission R&D is that the needs of Federal agencies often anticipate the market in terms of their demands for capability and quality. In areas where they follow the marketplace they should generally follow the marketplace with respect to acquisition as well. But in IT, the history has always been that many mission agencies, not just the DOD but the Department of Energy, NASA, other agencies, have needs that, frankly, go beyond the needs that are evident in the marketplace at any given moment. When they invest in a dual-use fashion, they get this tremendous impact from the investment because it creates an economic stimulus as well as a response to the agency needs. That actually pays off for the mission agencies. It's an important and sometimes essential payoff for those agencies. Dr. Lazowska. I'd just add one other fact to this, and that is the track record over many decades is that it takes about 15 years from the invention of an idea to when it's exploited in a billion dollar industry. OK? So what that means in some sense there is no such thing as just-in-time research if you are a commercial enterprise. Companies cannot afford to be investing in innovation that is not going to pay off for 10 or 15 years. I'm a shareholder, and you are a shareholder, and that is not the way we make investment decisions. That speaks to the role of the Federal Government and the Federal agencies because the mission of the Federal agencies require these advanced technologies. They support the innovation which in many times makes its way into the private sector, but it is many years later, and that is why the Federal Government has such an important role. Dr. Scherlis. Forgive me for prolonging the discussion, but I have to add one more point. Mission agencies enjoy another advantage, which is that they can afford to be farsighted. They don't have to make a quarter-by-quarter ROI case for every research investment they make. They can anticipate their needs through a planning process, and they can respond to these needs through their R&D mechanisms. And that, combined with the fact that they don't need to explicitly appropriate the value that they create through that R&D investment, creates a tremendous synergy that allows them to be much more aggressive and to get more leverage for their funding. If you look at the level of DARPA funding over these many years as compared with R&D funding in any one of the major IT companies, it is relatively low. But DOD gets enormous impact for that investment because they are investing in a leveraged way. They are applying this supply chain management trick of investing where they see they can get the maximum impact for that investment in the long run. Mr. Putnam. Are we still the cutting-edge Nation for basic research? Dr. Lazowska. There have been many claims in recent years that we are losing that edge, and the concern of PITAC has been that we are losing that edge in information technology because the level of investment has not kept pace with the opportunities of the field and the increasing demands on the field. So I think there is reason for concern, but it's very difficult to measure. For example, there was something in the papers a few months ago talking about the number of physics publications in Europe and Japan versus North America. I think we have to expect that the rest of the world is going to start contributing at a level comparable to what we're contributing. I urge to you think about the areas in which this Nation cannot afford not to be the world leader, and I would assert that information technology is one of those areas. We cannot afford not to be the world leader in information technology, because it drives everything else. It drives every other field of science, every other field of engineering. It drives the economy. It drives defense and security. We can't afford to fail to be the world leader in this one field. Mr. Putnam. Give me another field that we can't afford not to be the world leader in. Dr. Lazowska. You will have to convene another panel, sorry. Mr. Putnam. If I had CDC, would they say we couldn't afford not to be the world leader in gnomics and biotechnology and---- Dr. Lazowska. I firmly believe that 30 years ago I stumbled into the field that underpins all other fields, OK? So I firmly believe that this field is No. 1 in terms of the leverage that it offers. Dr. Scherlis is talking about leverage, and this is a field that offers enormous leverage in all other fields. You can't do advances in the biomedical sciences these days or in health care delivery without advances in information technology. You know, astronomy is digital imaging and data mining of the images. Mr. Putnam. You are not supposed to say data mining anymore. Ask these DARPA guys. Dr. Squires. Dr. Squires. Don't ask me that question. I think next on my list is, obviously, nano-technology, because of its fundamental implications. But simply investing in nano-technology without the context of its transforming effect on all of information technology and all other science would be a mistake. As I said in my testimony, as extraordinary as the advances have been in the last 50 years, they were enabled by a relatively small number of fundamental device inventions and a massive number of systems structures and a massive number of software technologies; and what we have today, as wonderful as it is from my sort of perspective of the future, is a really very small scale prototype of what it could really be 50 years from now. Mr. Putnam. In the green world or the blue world? Dr. Squires. Yes, the blue curve. My blue sky vision says we need to be in this world of the green, and we need to get off the yellow brick road. The rest of the world has seen what the U.S. process of invention and innovation has done. We need to get on the new curve. Otherwise, what is the risk of having some other part of the global community decide to get on the green curve? Mr. Putnam. It is a tremendous risk. But I mean, in 1985, we were all being told to go on to speak Japanese and that the Japanese were buying up the whole Nation and they owned the motion picture studios. And because they owned the motion picture studios, it was the end of America as we knew it. We go through these periods, and I am not in any way arguing with a distinguished group like yourself that it is not important for us to continue to be the world leader in IT. I am just trying to play devil's advocate here. Dr. Scherlis. I made a point in my testimony about the necessity of IT innovation and leadership as compared with other engineering disciplines. The issue is where, globally, is the focus of innovation and how important is it to have that focus of innovation. The reason that IT is interesting, as compared with other building materials--we can think of software as a kind of building material--is that other building materials can only scale up so much. You can only build a building that is so tall before various laws of physics start to impede our ability to build it taller. With software, we don't see any such natural limits. The Windows operating system I believe is now 50 million lines of code. Who contemplated 50 million lines of code even 20 years ago? Impossible. And there is no reason why we can't go from 50 million to 50 billion and to create systems of tremendous cognitive power, for example, that can translate languages or be autonomous robots or cars that can drive themselves. There are many such visions. My point is that these are no physical limits in the world of IT that impede us from addressing those aggressive visions directly. And in fact, as Steve Squires just said, let's focus on the hardest problems. What's interesting, in fact, is that partly is what DARPA is doing right now. They are focusing on the hard problems of cognition and how to build smart systems that can learn. That is a very good topic. But we also need to be focusing on the bread and butter issues of how can we make promises about the systems that we build, how can we make dependable systems and secure systems? These are hard problems, and these are the impediments to scaling up. Mr. Putnam. You said earlier there are absolutely no bounds for innovation to IT. Dr. Scherlis. No physical bounds. There are only intellectual bounds. Mr. Putnam. Does anyone disagree with that? Anyone wish to add to that? So how do you jump off the yellow brick road, Dr. Squires? Is it, as Dr. Freeman said, education, turning out more engineering and computer scientists and graduate degrees that are home grown? What is the trick to maintaining our leadership role in IT? Dr. Squires. I think it is important to have an effective framework for thinking about these future worlds that go beyond just the nano-devices and beyond just the applications so that you are actually able to effectively organize the different disciplines to work with each other. My favorite one, which I wrote a little bit about in the testimony, has five major layers from the bottom up: devices, modules, structures, virtualizations, and applications. Each of these is a major discipline in itself which works with all the other disciplines; and the most important thing is to look in, pick your favorite framework--that's my favorite one--and try to understand what the fundamental trends and limits are. So, for example, in devices, the fundamental trends and limits at the device level, these are actually running out of the ability to build integrated circuit technology with increasing performance and cost-effectiveness as we do it today. It costs billions of dollars to build the next VLSI product. You can save hundreds--many orders of magnitude when we transition to nano-scale self-organizing technologies. That may be 5 years before we get the first devices, but we certainly need the first new devices in that area. Assuming that you can do that, you have to think what are the new modules, units of replication, which, if we could have that new manufacturing capability, would we choose to have? If you had that, then what would be the new virtualizations, what would be the new system structures, and what would be the new applications? The interesting thing is what has happened is the transistor was invented and all the kinds of wonderful things happened after that. What we learned is that having multiple layers of the system work in parallel is way better than having them work in series. So if you have the basic and applied sciences working across the full range, from devices to applications through those intermediate levels, working on always the most important problems so the feedback would be not just produce the papers, produce real stuff, real system prototypes, real prototype products, real products which early adopters can use sooner rather than later and get the feedback to the system, you have the potential to bring the future into reality sooner rather than later. So I view this whole investment strategy as a kind of time machine. What you are actually doing with Federal R&D investment is getting an earlier view of the future than anybody else can, Getting it in the minds of the best scientists and engineers and businesspeople in the country and making it available to the United States and all the people of earth sooner rather than later. And doing one more thing: Through the American system, providing the incentives so it is used for good, as opposed to used for something else. So I can't imagine life without being on the frontier. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Lazowska. Dr. Lazowska. I think the simple answer to your question is ``support IT R&D by Federal agencies at the level that the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee recommended in 1999.'' What you see from this graph that I showed you earlier is that we're increasing Federal R&D overall. What you see from this graph is that Federal R&D in information technology has flat-lined. It has fallen far below the PITAC recommendation, and it has flat-lined, and the good news is these are very small numbers. We are talking about only hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That is not an inconsequential amount of money, but on the scale in which the Federal Government operates or the Federal R&D operates, it is inconsequential. Our government has failed to prioritize this field. Simple as that. What you understand very well is the role that this field plays in our economy and in all other fields. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Fossum, anything to add? Dr. Fossum. Just sort of a random thought that came by. I look back at the history of some of the things that the U.S. Government has done in R&D over the last 50 or 60 years, and what it took to do it. We have a history of when something is a true priority nationally of essentially having a major program or an incubator on it. Go back and start with the Manhattan project and look at the form they took. If IT R&D is very important to this Nation, which I think we all agree it is, maybe we need to look at some models that we used before, rather than rely on the current funding streams of the current agencies. Maybe we need to rethink how better to pull the parts together. Mr. Putnam. You raised a good point, and I have forgotten most of what I learned in junior high and high school science. All of you operate, as Dr. Squires put it, on the frontier. There is a great deal of apprehension and concern about our inability to attract young people into the math, science, and engineering fields; and yet as far back as the Manhattan project we were pretty well co-opting the world's talent anyway. We were offering them freedom, a safe place to live, work, raise their family, and have a future and apply their brilliance to productive, hopefully peaceful things, although we could certainly have a whole other hearing on that. But how great a crisis is that? How big a threat is that? And how much attention should we be paying to it? Is it a natural demographic occurrence that China will produce an annual increase of more engineering degrees than the sum of all of our schools? Or is it truly a crisis in American higher education? We'll start with Professor Lazowska. Dr. Lazowska. One thing I would say we should make sure that our immigration policies are in line with the sorts of goals you have articulated. That is, do we allow the best students from around the world to come to the United States and get training? And do we allow them to remain in the United States once trained? If they return to their home countries, do we use them as agents of international cooperation or perhaps are we closing our borders and preventing these smartest minds from around the world from coming to us and learning? Mr. Putnam. Anyone else before we lose power? Dr. Scherlis. I just want to say that it is a serious issue and that many universities are struggling to develop strategies to attract the very best students into these fields. In our programs, we continue to get the very best students, but, in many other programs, there are challenges. We find, for example, that applications from overseas have gone down considerably because of this friction at the border. So, yes, this is definitely an issue. The most fundamental element of our supply chain is the people who populate it, and I think we need to take it up explicitly. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Squires, you and Dr. Scherlis, y'all were both recruited very early in your careers into government service and research? Dr. Squires. I was, essentially as a freshman undergraduate. Dr. Scherlis. I was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon when I was recruited. Dr. Squires. But I recruited him. Dr. Scherlis. I thought it would be an easy desk job for a couple of years, and I could write papers in my spare time. But seriously, it was the most exciting and demanding thing I ever did. I stayed much longer than the usual tenure, and I continue to strongly recommend service. You talked about this with the earlier panel. We all feel the sense of possibility and opportunity to really do something significant for the Nation. There are many good reasons to take this up. Mr. Putnam. So high turnover is a fact of life in these fields? I mean, you said you stayed longer than normal. Dr. Scherlis. The IPA law, Interagency Personnel Act, allows a maximum stay of 4 years for somebody rotating in from a university or a State or local government. In fact, what I did was to stay on the IPA for 4 years; and then I rejoined as a senior executive government employee. Typically, rotators from universities to NSF or DARPA or other agencies will stay between 2 and 4 years and then return so that they don't lose continuity in their home institutions. Dr. Lazowska. I think it helps to be part of the research community, to work with the research community. So both NSF and DARPA have had great success with recruiting top members of the research community into being office directors and program managers for a period of time and then sending them back. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Fossum, and then we're going to wrap it up. Dr. Fossum. DARPA and NSF are stellar examples of this. That's not the case as I can see with a place like NASA where IT is very critical and where they have a large budget for R&D, but they are not real good at R&D partnering because they tend to deal more with contract-driven R&D, then grant-driven R&D. And the world you are talking about is where universities can coordinate with the Federal Government to cooperate and leverage the talent at universities is a ``grant driven'' world for the most part. In that world, you are talking about the ``science program'' at Department of Energy. You are talking about NSF. You are talking about NIH. So just like we have a problem with the substantive border--perhaps we also need to take a look at how the R&D dollars move, and also, where the laboratories in the Federal Government will open their doors to various and sundry people. DARPA is world famous for this. World class. Maybe we need to use them as an example to teach a few other parts of the Federal Government how they might do that, too. Mr. Putnam. You pushed a button. Dr. Scherlis. Dr. Scherlis. Yes. I just want to present an alternative perspective about collaboration with NASA. Dr. Fossum. Oh, they do some. No doubt. Dr. Scherlis. I lead a project with NASA that involves Carnegie Mellon and five other universities, MIT, University of Southern California, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, and University of Maryland. And that project is structured as a cooperative agreement which allows us to collaborate directly with NASA mission managers, mission engineers, and intramural researchers. We find that to be a very successful structure for collaboration. And I also want to note that at DARPA, at least to my knowledge, most of the relationships that they build with researchers at universities are framed as contracts or cooperative agreements. The nature of the vehicle through which the collaboration is undertaken, is I think, less important than the culture and horizon of the sponsoring organization. Mr. Putnam. Dr. Fossum's total agreement is noted for the record. Dr. Fossum. Yes. I just wanted to make one point. And the only point I was trying to make is that if you look at the proportion of, for instance, cooperative agreements, which are the vehicle that should be used, in some agencies, they haven't learned how to use them quite to the extent they might want to. NASA is an example of such an agency. Mr. Putnam. One of the things that I talk about in my Rotary Club speeches is when you look at the success of the American military and exponentially ahead of our competitors in a variety of fields, it's really because of the investments that the American people have made with their hard-earned tax dollars for decades that yields tremendous military prowess that then translates into the commercial sector. And, you know, people don't normally realize it until they hear it that they are shareholders in the success that ultimately not only raises our living standards but saves lives. Our society is not particularly good at recognizing and rewarding smart people, and yet it's the brilliant people in laboratories, in universities and in the Federal Government that just do tremendous things to make our lives easier, better, healthier, more productive and worthwhile. And one of the side effects, the positive side effects among many in the dot-com boom was that it kind of made it OK to be smart again. Working hard and being smart and attentive and paying attention to the sciences and math and computers, would get you a billion dollars or more in the case of some of them. And, hopefully we can find some way to tap into that generation of young people who have grown up seeing that and encourage them to continue to pursue their studies and academics and make it OK to be smart again. It's been a pleasure having such a smart panel showing their wisdom with us. Before we adjourn, I want to just convey to you the subcommittee's deepest appreciation for your accommodating us and dealing with the voting schedule. Your testimony is very important to our better understanding of Federal R&D, and we appreciate you. In the event that there may be additional questions that we do not have time for today, the record shall remain open for 2 weeks for submitted questions and answers. Thank you all very much. The subcommittee is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 4:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] [Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.076 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.078 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.080 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.081 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.082 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.083 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.084 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.085 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 97999.086 <all>