Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my amendments to H.R. 4502, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act of 2022.

These three amendments, included in en bloc three, support essential funding for our National Labs. The first amendment, which I introduced with Reps. Wittman, Beyer, Luria, and Wexton of Virginia; Reps. Suozzi and Rice of New York; and Rep. Slotkin of Michigan, highlights the need for funding for Medium Energy Operations and Nuclear Physics within the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The funding level included in the President's Budget would advance our understanding of nuclear physics, study which enhances safety, quality of life, and even medical care. Scientists and researchers at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab), located in the heart of my district in Newport News, train the next generation of scientists, advance lifesaving cancer radiation therapies, and have been awarded more than 150 patents. Insufficient funding for Nuclear Physics and Medium Energy research would jeopardize Jefferson Lab's run times, contributing to an increased backlog of experiments ultimately slowing innovation and decreasing the United States' scientific achievements.

Given the incredible work that Jefferson Lab does, I also submitted an amendment to encourage much needed investment in the Electron-Ion Collider, on which scientists at Jefferson National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory are collaborating. Again, the funding level included in the President's Budget Request is essential to moving this critical project forward. I thank my colleagues Reps. Wittman, Beyer, Luria, Wexton, Suozzi, and Rice for their support of this effort. By supporting the development of the Electron-Ion Collider, we enable researchers to answer pressing physics questions about the world in which we live.

Lastly, I was pleased to see funding for the High Performance Data Facility to support real-time analysis for experiments across the National Laboratories included in the President's Budget. The proposed facility would meet the needs of increasingly complex research projects across the labs. Jefferson Lab, the first National Lab to deploy a graphics processing unit for scientific computing, is incredibly well- suited to house this facility on the East Coast. Establishing the facility at Jefferson Lab would not only increase the National Laboratories' computing capacity, it would also enhance their resilience and help Jefferson Lab achieve its vision for a diversified scientific mission moving forward. I thank my colleagues Reps. Wittman, Beyer, Luria, and Wexton for their support of this amendment.

These amendments, like the underlying bill, help us move forward, spurring innovation, creating jobs, facilitating incredible discovery. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and these amendments.

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