Keynote Address
The keynote address was presented by Pete Domenici. Senator Domenici, who has represented New Mexico in the U.S. Senate since 1972, chairs both the Senate Budget Committee and the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He has long been known for his commitment to science and technology and is a strong proponent of research. Because the President’s budget was released on February 7, 2000, the day before the forum, Senator Domenici’s schedule required that he present his remarks by video.
Thank you for the invitation to join you this morning. Much as I’d like to be with you in person, this is a very busy time in my role as chairman of the Budget Committee. We have hearings virtually every day as we work to complete the committee’s work in March. And since the president is scheduled to release his budget proposal the day before you hear this talk, you can be assured that during the presentation of this video I’ll be very busy studying those documents.
Your forum, “Materials in the New Millennium,” should lead to some fascinating discussions. Materials science underpins every product and process on which our modern society depends. As I visit the universities and laboratories in my home state, I’m constantly reminded of the importance of your work to develop advanced materials and to better understand the science of current materials.
Just recently, I was at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and saw a demonstration of photonic crystals. These marvelous miniature structures offer the promise of controlling light the same way that conventional semiconductors enable us to control electrical signals. They may be used for ultrahigh-speed transmission and processing of signals in advanced instruments, including future generations of computers.
Materials science underpins every product and process on which our modern society depends.
That work is closely related to Sandia’s work in the broad field of microsystems. I’ve been amazed to see their progress in integrating tiny machines onto silicon chips. When those miniature machines are coupled on the same chip to electronics for detection and analysis, we will have amazing capabilities that will lead to whole new generations of products and tools. The materials challenges that must be faced in perfecting these miniature systems will be daunting.
On the same trip, I also participated in celebrating the second year of a new brain imaging project led from Albuquerque. The work couples two spectacular technologies, functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, and magnetoencephalography, or MEG. By using both technologies, researchers obtain details of neural activity in the brain.
More and more of my colleagues are recognizing the role that advanced technologies play in the strength of our national economy.
MEG and fMRI use two extremes of magnetic fields. fMRI uses some of the largest commercial magnets available. MEG senses the tiny magnetic signals from individual neurons. Both technologies faced immense materials challenges. I also found it interesting that the ceramic material used in the MEG work was first developed for kitchen cookware—providing a good example of the versatility of advanced materials.
Turning to a very different materials problem, I discuss the status of the stockpile stewardship program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on every visit to Los Alamos. In that program, the weapons labs are faced with the challenge of ensuring the safety and integrity of our nuclear stockpile in the absence of testing. As you well know, weapons by their very nature are constructed of unstable materials—radioactive materials that change as they decay, along with various plastics that behave in unpredictable ways over time. These are also materials issues that members of your profession are asked to understand.
Some of the tools that you use in your research reside at the national laboratories that are funded through my Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. Neutron scattering sources, like LANSCE at Los Alamos, or advanced light sources, like those at Brookhaven or Argonne, are important in your work.
Progress in your field depends on adequate funding, from both government and private sectors. I’m pleased with some of the progress we’ve made in the last year. Congress provided healthy increases in most areas of science and technology for the current fiscal year. In fact Congress increased the overall federal research and development budget by about 7 percent above the president’s request for this current year and about 5 percent above last year’s funding level.
The largest increase this year went to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with a 12 percent increase above the president’s request and more than 14 percent above the previous year. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is up more than 5 percent from the previous year. Defense science and technology accounts also fared very well, with an 11 percent increase over last year and a 17 percent increase over the president’s budget. Many of these accounts provide funding for your materials research.
When Congress approved the appropriations for this year, with such generous support for science and technology, some people argued that we
were sacrificing the balanced budget. I’m especially proud that the latest estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirm statements that I’ve been making for many months. The CBO figures prove that we provided these excellent increases for science and technology with a balanced budget and without spending a dime of the Social Security surplus. In fact, the latest CBO figures confirm a $23 billion non-Social Security surplus for this year.
In the past year, there were two other bills that I’d like to briefly highlight. I was an original cosponsor of S. 296, the Federal Research Investment Act, which calls for doubling federal support for science and technology over about 12 years. That bill passed the Senate last year. In fact, it had more than 40 sponsors by the time it was finally debated, showing that more and more of my colleagues are recognizing the role that advanced technologies play in the strength of our national economy.
The most important part of this bill was simply the fact that it raised the prominence of federal support for science and technology and that it highlighted the importance of treating such federal expenditures as investments in our nation’s future rather than as entitlements. It also set up mechanisms to ensure that any increases stayed within budget limits that maintained a balanced budget—after all, we’ve worked too hard for too many years to achieve this budget balance, and that balance needs to be guarded with the utmost care in the future.
Another key part of this bill suggests increases in funding across a broad spectrum of scientific areas. That’s important because we’ve been accelerating medical research very rapidly recently. Over the past few years, the growth rate for medical research has been about twice that for all other areas. There’s no doubt that the medical research is important—but many of the latest breakthroughs depend on advances in a broad range of specialties. If we focus too much on strictly medical research, we don’t advance the other sciences in tandem, and we may miss opportunities for new breakthroughs.
The bill also supports research ranging from fundamental research to precompetitive engineering studies. That’s important because I want to ensure that we don’t identify some new phenomenon and then stop supporting it before it reaches the product stage where it has an impact on the general public and generates new well-paying jobs.
You have many success stories that should be provided to the public.
The Research Investment bill is now in the House, where Representative Wilson has introduced it. That bill deserves your active support.
Last year, I also sponsored major changes in the research and experimentation tax credit. The philosophy behind this credit—that it’s in the nation’s interest to encourage private research—is sound. But there are many aspects of the credit that need modernizing, with the most serious issue being that the credit has never been permanent. My bill, S. 951, made a number of
changes in the way the credit is calculated, and it received strong bipartisan support.
Without a permanent credit, companies can’t build long-term research strategies, so the current credit really hasn’t been as useful as it might be. It has other weaknesses, too. Its value depends on how much a company’s research expenditures have grown since a base period starting in 1984. As 1984 recedes into the distant past, this calculation becomes less and less relevant to modern business conditions. Thus one of my initiatives was to establish a new current baseline for the credit. I also inserted provisions to encourage creation of research consortia and to encourage contract research at universities, small businesses, and national labs.
S. 951 was not enacted last year, but it helped create a climate for the first long-term extension of the credit, for five years. I remain hopeful that my bill will be considered in the remainder of the 106th Congress so that the nation’s research climate can be improved with the changes that it includes.
You’re hearing this talk the day after the president’s budget is delivered to Congress, and I’m taping this speech before I’ve seen the budget. But based on both the State of the Union address and various leaks on the president’s new programs, I’m sure there are many new initiatives suggested in his budget.
Some of these new initiatives increase the federal investment in science and technology. I expect to see proposals for significant increases in the NIH and NSF budgets. You can be sure that Congress will study these proposals very carefully. In light of the superb congressional support for science and technology in the past, some of these initiatives may be accepted. Congress may even increase some of the president’s recommendations, as they have in past years. Or we may establish new programs in alternative areas. But you can also be sure that the Congress will insist that we maintain a balanced budget—and considering the hype surrounding the multitude of new programs he’s proposing, the president may be less concerned about budget balance than Congress will be.
One of the initiatives that President Clinton has discussed involves nanotechnology. That’s the same area that I highlighted in my opening remarks when I mentioned Sandia’s work on photonic crystals and microsystems. You already know about my excitement for this area. Materials science is a vital contributor to the success of this new field.
As we look into the future, projections based on our continued economic strength paint a very rosy picture. We can anticipate a dramatic reduction in the public debt as a fraction of the gross domestic product, even as we maintain the security of the Social Security system. There will be opportunities for selected budget increases that stay within a balanced budget. Science and technology budgets in general, and your materials science budgets in particular, will be strong competitors for some of these increases.
You have many success stories that should be provided to the public, where your work on advanced materials has enabled new technologies, new products, and new processes that have helped maintain our superb economic
success and standard of living. You can cite examples that range from our modern automobiles and airplanes to modern medical technologies to the personal computers that are found everywhere today.
Your work truly has an impact on virtually every part of our modern civilization. I encourage you to join with other scientists in sharing your information with the public and helping more people understand the vital relationship between science and technology and the economic success we’ve enjoyed as a nation.
Pete Lyons, the senator’s key aide for science and technology issues, responded to questions and comments after the video presentation. An edited summary of that discussion follows.
Question: What is the proposed budget for the nanotechnology initiative, and how much of that funding is new?
Answer: Funding for DOE is $87 million. The NSF and other agencies will add to that number. There is likely to be a fair amount of new money as well as redirected old money. The senator is very excited about nanotechnology.
Q: The DOE budget shows a 13 percent increase for science and technology. What are the affected areas?
A: It appears that magnetoencephalography is zeroed in the president’s budget. That will be carefully reviewed. We will be examining the approach to nuclear waste issues, an area of particular interest to the senator. In particular, we will be exploring alternate paths for handling waste materials, an area that was zeroed in the president’s budget. Senator Domenici is trying to help the community to develop a better scientific basis for setting radiation standards, an area where the budget was reduced. The National Spallation Neutron Source, which received marginal funding last year, is up $163 million in the current budget proposal, but the senator will be carefully reviewing this item. He has proposed that there be a separate department for security in DOE, and this will also be an area for review.
Technology advances have accounted for between 50 and 70 percent of the improvement in our standard of living since World War II.
Q: How can we help the senator in his efforts to support science and technology?
A: Technology advances have accounted for between 50 and 70 percent of the improvement in our standard of living since World War II. Work together, with others in the materials community or with other scientific groups, to increase awareness of this link. Work with other members of Congress to educate them.
Q: Could you speculate on the status and health of the doubling bill in the House?
A: As written, the bill cuts across multiple committee jurisdictions. Committees tend to be protective of their areas of purview, so there may be challenges in getting the bill out of committee. The bill is written to spread increases in research funding across a wide range of disciplines.
Q: Could you clarify “a wide range of disciplines”?
A: For the agencies in the bill, research funding will double over the next 12 years. If an agency gets ahead of that schedule, it is dropped out of the calculation until the others reach the same percentage increase. As well as supporting a wide range of technical areas, the bill covers the full range from fundamental research through precompetitive engineering. We do not want to drop support for good ideas before they reach the precompetitive phase.
Q: Is the senator’s support for the full range from fundamental research through precompetitive engineering a widely held view in Congress?
A: Many members of Congress do not understand the whole spectrum and tend to favor fundamental research. Research is a complex process that does not always fit well into simple categories. Some members of Congress still need more education.
Q: What kinds of input do you get from individual scientists?
A: Scientists in New Mexico know Senator Domenici well and like him. That kind of rapport may be harder in larger states. I encourage scientists to give their input to members of Congress as well as their staff. The more you interact, the better. I would also note the helpful role of the congressional fellowships program run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. If those assignments were for two years rather than one, the fellows would be even more effective, and more members might use them on their staffs.
