Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.

Madam Chair, America is facing security, economic, and environmental challenges that are unparalleled in our history. Our national laboratories have a unique set of assets we can leverage to meet these challenges.

Projects financed by LDRD have allowed the National Nuclear Security Agency to rapidly respond to unforeseen national security needs. In 1988, Sandia National Labs, located in my district, made a breakthrough in parallel computing that resulted in the ability to compute extremely complicated numerical simulations to ensure the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile without the need for nuclear tests. As a result, we have not tested a nuclear weapon since 1993.

The benefits of parallel processing supercomputers have also improved the competitiveness of U.S. industries in the global economy. They were used to map the human genome, develop new drugs, and shorten the development time of products by finding mistakes before they end up in prototypes.

Parallel processing supercomputers have also greatly increased our understanding of atmospheric changes through global atmospheric circulation simulation. These advancements have helped provide an understanding of the climate that cannot be determined by theory or by other experiments.

LDRD investments have been historically important in advancing the state of high-performance computing. Ongoing LDRD investments are enabling next-generation computing hardware and software approaches that will eventually lead to much better performance.

I am confident that we can work with the chairman and the ranking member to fund LDRD at levels that will maintain our vital national security assets, and I thank them for their willingness to work with us on this issue.

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