Doe and Nsf Interagency Research Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Lofgren for her very kind and generous words. I can only hope that my constituents in Michigan hear the praise from the ranking member from the great State of California for the work that we do together on the Science Committee.

Certainly, it is a sincere privilege to be also joined on the floor today with our chairman, Mr. Lucas, as he reminded us with the TRANQ legislation that Ms. Caraveo and Mr. Williams will be the first Members of the freshman class to get a bill signed into law for this term in Congress.

It wasn't all too long ago when Dr. Baird and myself shared that same distinction for the Building Blocks of STEM Act, the bill that we passed through the Science Committee, through the House floor, and alongside our colleagues in the Senate, getting it signed into law on December 24th, 2019.

Suffice it to say, Dr. Baird and I were not at the White House for the signing of the Building Blocks of STEM Act.

Today, Dr. Baird and I are pleased to offer the DOE and NSF Research Interagency Act to the House floor, a bill that has already passed through the Science Committee.

The Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation represent some of our Nation's most cutting-edge research activities, as has been shared by our committee leadership, supporting the innovation that we require to solve our most pressing issues and remain competitive on the world stage.

The DOE and NSF employees, in particular, are not necessarily in two buildings that are right next to each other. They are in a similar geographic area, but they do not share building space.

The employees and the funded researchers are world-renowned scientific minds, and they are pushing on the door of what we think is possible.

They are making science fiction a reality every single day, and we encourage and implore their activities to proliferate, to manifest, and to continue to come together, particularly on the heels of the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill that many of us, including myself on the Science Committee, helped to author and pass through into law just a little over a year ago.

If we are going to achieve the goals of the CHIPS and Science Act without the full funding, particularly for the NSF, we need this legislation. We need the interagency efforts of DOE and NSF to come together.

We will continue to promote cross functionality of research if it is with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in fusion science, or if it is combining the DOE's expertise in computational sciences, including the scientific potential of the fastest supercomputers in the world.

What NSF is doing with artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to be key to unlocking the metrics needed to create safe and trustworthy AI applications so the United States can continue to lead in this innovation sector.

Combining NSF's material science expertise, which the United States is in a phenomenal race to lead on, with the work being done across the Department of Energy and the Ames National Laboratory on critical minerals will be key not only to untangling our supply chains but in creating a circular economy that promotes worker safety and environmental protections while securing our economic prosperity, energy independence, and national security for decades to come.

Lastly, combining the work that both agencies are doing with quantum technologies will be key to unlocking the potential of this revolutionary emerging technology, including for our manufacturers and applications for cybersecurity.

These are just some of the examples of the amazing potential that fostering a partnership between the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation will mean for our Nation and the next generation, proving once again that Federal sciences are the key to our Nation's future.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill to push forward our Nation's scientific ecosystem and bolster our competitiveness on the world stage.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source