Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 2014

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to present an amendment that addresses an imbalance in our efforts to promote the long-term economic and national security interests of the United States.

This amendment reverses the deep and harmful cuts to the Department of Energy's Office of Science and balances this by a corresponding reduction--amounting to 6 percent--in the nuclear weapons production and life extension accounts.

The greatest long-term threat that our country faces on both the military and economic fronts is the threat of losing our role as world leaders in innovation in science and technology. Nothing is more crucial to preserving that role than the fundamental and applied scientific research, at both universities and national laboratories, supported by the DOE Office of Science. This appropriations bill would cut funding for the Office of Science by $500 million below the President's request for the next fiscal year.

As a physicist who worked at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory for over 20 years and collaborated with universities and other national labs all over the United States, I understand the productivity and the potential of the Department of Energy's national lab system and the wide range of basic scientific research that they support.

The Office of Science is responsible for supporting university-based research, but it also supports basic research facilities that are too big for any single company or university to develop.

The Chicago area that I represent is home to a number of scientific centers, including Fermilab, Argonne National Laboratory, and university-based centers. The economic impact of Argonne and Fermilab in Illinois alone is estimated to be more than $1.3 billion annually, and there are thousands of good-paying jobs that are supported by those investments.

Our national labs are a critical research tool to academics and industry alike. For example, Eli Lilly conducts nearly half of its drug discovery research in conjunction with the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne.

The Office of Science is also home to one of the Department's newest ventures, the innovation hubs, which seek to discover and develop the next generation of energy delivery. Programs like the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, headquartered at Argonne, and the Fuels from Sunlight Hub, headquartered at the California Institute of Technology, bring together multiple teams of researchers who are working to develop energy advancements that have the potential to transform our energy systems.

The Office of Science also invests in fusion, a safe, clean, and sustainable energy source that has the scientific potential to provide the United States with energy independence and a nearly limitless zero-emissions energy supply.

Currently, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is building the most powerful fusion facility of its type in the world. Through the Office of Science's Biological and Environmental Research programs, we have become world leaders in biofuels research. This research is laying the foundation for a revolution in biofuel production that will help to lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

Study after study has shown that there are few investments that government can make that provide as high a return on investment as scientific research and development. The cuts proposed by Republicans in this underlying bill will have a wide-ranging impact, both to the local economy in Illinois and to our national economy. And with wages as a percentage of our economy at a record low, it is not time to retreat and to stop investing in American innovation. We need to maintain a competitive advantage now more than ever.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today because we must continue to invest in American innovation and to fully fund the research and development conducted through the DOE Office of Science.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FOSTER. I would actually like to respond a little bit about the offset for this amendment. This amendment is offset by reducing the $7.7 billion budget for the NNSA nuclear weapons account by $500 million. This is a 6.5 percent reduction.

I want to make it clear that the intent of this amendment is not to reduce the large amount of high-quality research that goes on in NNSA-supported programs; but a large fraction of the funding in this account goes to production and future production facilities for weapons systems that serve no clearly defined strategic purpose in today's geopolitics, or they go to programs for which the cost estimates, the project management, or both have come under repeated criticism when they come under external independent review.

To take two examples, the underlying bill funds the B61 life extension program at $23 million more than requested. This program has ballooned in cost, from $4 billion 2 years ago to over $10 billion. A recent independent cost estimate commissioned by the Pentagon called even this estimate into question.

Another example is the overall size of the nuclear weapons stockpile. We have, today, more than 5,000 nuclear weapons. Even if the United States and Russia were to cut our arsenals by a factor of 10, our countries would still have significantly more nuclear weapons than our nearest competitors. The reason you spend money on nuclear deterrence is to deter rational actors and to reassure our allies.

To those who oppose this 6 percent cut, I would ask: Is there any example of a rational actor who would not be adequately deterred by a stockpile of, for example, 1,000 deployed and deployable nuclear weapons? Is there any one of our allies who would not consider our ability to release, say, 10 percent of that arsenal in retaliation to an attack on them to be a sufficient ability to respond? Yet we are redesigning production facilities and spending money on them when the strategic quantities required to be produced have not been established.

Earlier this year, the GAO added that NNSA was:

again included on GAO's high-risk list in recognition of the potential for vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in contract administration and management of major projects.

And the cost remains uncertain. From the text of this very Energy and Water Committee report accompanying this bill:

The committee notes that the full extent of the consequences of the NNSA's project management problems, especially at the largest of the NNSA's construction projects, is still coming to light. As the administration gains a more complete understanding of cost increases and construction delays, it must take the lead to determine whether a new long-term budget plan is needed to meet the Nation's strategic objectives.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source