Department of Energy Veterans' Health Initiative Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today we are considering three good bills from the Science Committee: H.R. 5509, the Innovation in Mentoring, Training, and Apprenticeships Act; H.R. 6229, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Reauthorization Act of 2018; and, H.R. 6398, the Department of Energy Veterans' Health Initiative Act. I support each of these bills, and look forward to their passage.

I want to thank Majority leader McCarthy for introducing H.R. 5509, the Innovations in Mentoring, Training, and Apprenticeships Act. This legislation directs the National Science Foundation to support research to improve STEM degree programs and apprenticeships in partnership with the private sector. H.R. 5509 also supports labor market research to draw upon lessons learned in countries already benefitting from an emphasis on apprenticeships and skilled-based learning. This is a good bill that will help to bring the education and training our students receive more in line with the skills employers value most. This will benefit those preparing to enter an ever-changing job market, employers seeking to innovate and increase production, and our economy as a whole. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bill.

H.R. 6229, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Reauthorization Act of 2018, is a two-year, bipartisan reauthorization of programs and activities for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. I am glad to see that this bill increases funding levels for the agency's laboratory programs and funds research and standards facilitation for important issues such as advanced communications, cybersecurity and privacy, internet of things, quantum information science, artificial intelligence research, and infrastructure resilience. I am glad to support this bill today, and furthermore, urge my colleagues to support increased funding in the future for crucial laboratory infrastructure enhancements on the NIST campuses.

H.R. 6398, The Department of Energy Veterans' Health Initiative Act, authorizes the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct collaborative research with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in order to address complex, large data management challenges associated with veterans' health care issues. Specifically, it aims to leverage DOE's expertise in high performance computing in order to analyze VA-provided health and genomics data.

This bill also directs DOE to carry out a two-year research pilot program to advance research in artificial intelligence and data analytics for a broad range of potential applications. It provides the Secretary with the authority to establish user facilities capable of securely storing large data sets created by Federal agencies, academic institutions, or industry at DOE National Laboratories. I appreciate the need to utilize the entire resource base of the Federal government to address the needs of our veterans' health care. This bill provides an important tool to try and make our veterans lives better, and I strongly support the bill's passage.

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