Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 15, 2004, at 10 a.m., on ``Impacts of Climate Change.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Wednesday, September 15 at 9:30 a.m., to consider pending calendar business.

Agenda Item 1: S. Con. Res. 121--A concurrent resolution supporting the goals and ideals of the World Year of Physics.

Agenda Item 2: S. 437--A bill to provide for adjustments to the Central Arizona Project in Arizona, to authorize the Gila River Indian Community water rights settlement, to reauthorize and amend the Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act of 1982, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 3: S. 511--A bill to provide permanent funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 7: S. 1064--A bill to establish a commission to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 9: S. 1354--A bill to resolve certain conveyances and provide for alternative land selections under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act related to Cape Fox Corporation and Sealaska Corporation, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 12: S. 1462--A bill to adjust the boundary of the Cumberland Island Wilderness, to authorize tours of the Cumberland Island National Seashore, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 13: S. 1466--A bill to facilitate the transfer of land in the State of Alaska, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 14: S. 1614--A bill to designate a portion of White Salmon River as a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

Agenda Item 15: S. 1649--A bill to designate the Ojito Wilderness Study Area as wilderness, to take certain land into trust for the Pueblo of Zia, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 16: S. 1678--A bill to provide for the establishment of the Uintah Research and Curatorial Center for Dinosaur National Monument in the States of Colorado and Utah, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 17: S. 1852--A bill to provide financial assistance for the rehabilitation of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the development of an exhibit to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin.

Agenda Item 18: S. 1876--A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain lands and facilities of the Provo River Project.

Agenda Item 19: S. 2086--A bill to amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to improve the reclamation of abandoned mines.

Agenda Item 20: S. 2142--A bill to authorize appropriations for the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Route, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 21: S. 2181--A bill to adjust the boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park in the State of Colorado.

Agenda Item 23: S. 2334--A bill to designate certain National Forest System land in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Agenda Item 24: S. 2374--A bill to provide for the conveyance of certain lands to the United States and to revise the boundary of Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Oklahoma, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 25: S. 2408--A bill to adjust the boundaries of the Helena, Lolo, and Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forests in the State of Montana.

Agenda Item 26: S. 2432--A bill to expand the boundaries of Wilson's Creek Battlefield National Park, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 27: S. 2567--A bill to adjust the boundary of Redwood National Park in the State of California.

Agenda Item 28: S. 2622--A bill to provide for the exchange of certain Federal land in the Santa Fe National Forest and certain non- Federal land in the Pecos National Historic Park in the State of New Mexico.

Agenda Item 31: H.R. 1113--To authorize an exchange of land at Fort Frederica National Monument, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 32: H.R. 1446--To support the efforts of the California Missions Foundation to restore and repair the Spanish colonial and mission-era missions in the State of California and to preserve the artworks and artifacts of these missions, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 33: H.R. 1964--To assist the States of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania in conserving priority lands and natural resources in the Highlands region, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 34: H.R. 2010--To protect the voting rights of members of the Armed Services in elections for the Delegate representing American Samoa in the United States House of Representatives, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 35: H.R. 3706--To adjust the boundary of the John Muir National Historic site, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 36: H.R. 4516--To require the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program of research and development to advance high-end computing.

In addition, the committee may turn to any other measures that are ready for consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open executive session during the session on September 15, 2004, at 10 a.m., to consider favorably reporting S. 333, a bill to promote elder justice, and the nomination of Joey Russell George, to be Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, U.S. Department of Treasury.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 15, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing on ``Accelerating U.S. Assistance to Iraq.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 15, 2004, at 10 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a business meeting on pending committee matters.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4516) to require the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program of research and development to advance high-end computing, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 4516, as amended, the bill now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in light of the bill just considered by this body, I am sure many of our colleagues are wondering why we are considering another high-performance computing bill and what the difference is between this bill and the one just approved. In a nutshell, the bill we are considering right now, H.R. 4516, the Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004, authorizes specific research and development activities that the Department of Energy will need to undertake to meet the mandates laid out in H.R. 4218, the bill just considered by the House.

H.R. 4516 strengthens the interagency planning process for high- performance computing R&D. It also makes clear that the Department of Energy, through its Office of Science and the National Science Foundation, are the two lead agencies within the Federal Government responsible for providing U.S. researchers with access to the most advanced computing facilities in the world.

The bill under consideration now complements H.R. 4218 by spelling out in detail the R&D that the Department of Energy should be doing to help ensure that America remains a leader in the development and use of super computers.

More specifically, H.R. 4516 does three things. First, it requires the Secretary of Energy to establish and operate high-end computing facilities involving leadership-class machines that are among the most elite in the world.

Second, the bill directs the Secretary to conduct advanced scientific and engineering R&D using these leadership-class systems and to continue to advance the capabilities of high-end computing hardware and software.

Finally, the bill requires that these computing facilities be made available on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis to researchers from U.S. industry, institutions of higher education, national laboratories, and other Federal agencies.

Mr. Speaker, last fall the Department of Energy's Office of Science released its 20-year facility plan, a prioritized list of the most important facilities needed to advance multiple fields of scientific endeavor over the next 2 decades. The second-highest priority identified on the Department's list was ultra-scale computing. Ultra- scale or high-end computing ranks high on the Department of Energy's priority list, because these computers are essential tools for achieving the next

generation of scientific breakthroughs in a variety of fields central to the Department of Energy's mission.

In many cases, dramatic breakthroughs will require increasing computing power by a factor of a hundred or in some cases by a factor of a thousand. While attaining these increases may seem daunting, the history of computer development has taught us that, with a sustained commitment to research, such gains are within our reach. That is why Secretary Abraham recently announced the selection of a team including Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, IBM, Cray and other partners to develop and build a new high-end computing facility.

When completed, this new user facility will outpace the world's current number one computer, Japan's Earth Stimulator. H.R. 4516 supports this new initiative of the Department of Energy and ensures that the Department can fulfill its responsibility to help lead the Federal Government's supercomputing R&D efforts.

Mr. Speaker, by renewing our commitment to high-end computing research and development at the Department of Energy, the United States can regain its competitive edge in the development and use of supercomputers and recapture the distinction of being home to the world's most powerful computer. Again, our Nation's scientific enterprise and our economy will be the stronger for it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), once more for his work as a lead sponsor of this legislation, and I would also like to thank the minority and the majority staff of the Committee on Science for their time and effort and ideas. With the passage of this legislation, the Department of Energy will continue to revolutionize the use of supercomputers, ensuring the competitiveness of American science and industry. I would urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 4516) to require the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program of research and development to advance high-end computing.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the Senate amendment to H.R. 4516, the bill now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, when we think of how computers affect our lives, we probably think of the work we do on our office desktop machines, or maybe the Internet surfing we do in our spare time. We do not normally think of the enormous contribution that supercomputers, also called high-performance computers, make to the world around us.

These powerful machines are used in the development of pharmaceuticals, in modeling the earth's climate, and in applications critical to ensuring our national and homeland security and our economic competitiveness. High-performance computers also are central to maintaining U.S. leadership in many scientific fields. Computational science complements theory and experimentation in fields such as plasma physics and fusion, astrophysics, nuclear physics and genomics.

The bill currently under consideration, H.R. 4516, spells out in detail the research and development the Department of Energy should be doing to help

ensure that America remains a leader in the development and use of supercomputers. More specifically, H.R. 4516 does three things.

First, it requires the Secretary of Energy to establish and operate high-end computing facilities involving leadership-class machines that are among the most elite in the world.

Second, this bill directs the Secretary to conduct advanced scientific and engineering research and development using these leadership class systems, and to continue to advance the capabilities of high-end computing hardware and software.

Finally, the bill requires that these computing facilities be made available on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis to researchers from U.S. industry, institutions of higher learning, national laboratories and other Federal agencies.

Mr. Speaker, dramatic scientific and commercial breakthroughs will require us to increase computing power by a factor of 100 or, in some cases, by a factor of 1,000. While attaining these increases may seem daunting, the history of computer development has taught us that, with a sustained commitment to research, such gains are within our reach.

That is why Energy Secretary Abraham announced last summer the selection of a team, including Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, IBM, Cray and other partners, to develop and build a new, high-end computing facility.

H.R. 4516 complements and supports this DOE initiative and ensures that the department can fulfill its responsibility to help lead the Federal Government's supercomputing R&D efforts.

The Senate passed this bill by unanimous consent last month, and in July the House passed a similar version by voice vote. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation again and send it to the President's desk so that the United States can maintain its distinction as home to the world's most powerful computer.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to conclude this debate by recognizing the bill's cosponsors, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), and thank them for their efforts in support of this legislation.

I also would like to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) for holding a Science Committee hearing last May to review our Federal investment in high-end computing. The hearing was a success. We received positive feedback on this legislation from a number of experts on high-performance computing who testified before the committee.

I also would like to acknowledge the U.S. supercomputing industry for its impressive accomplishments. I congratulate IBM for its new Blue Gene/L supercomputer, which was recognized just last week as the fastest computer in the world. The Blue Gene/L is faster than Japan's Earth Simulator, which held the world record in computing speed for nearly 3 years. With passage of this bill, the DOE can work closely with IBM and other industry leaders like Cray and Silicon Graphics Incorporated as well as academia to ensure that the United States continues to be home to the world's fastest supercomputer for years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce H.R. 4516, the Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004, which outlines how the Department of Energy will help ensure that America remains a leader in the development and use of supercomputers.

On April 27, I introduced H.R. 4218, the High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act of 2004. H.R. 4218 addresses the need for an on- going, coordinated interagency process to guide federal decision-making in high-performance computing investments. That bill strengthens the interagency process by requiring the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House to ``develop and maintain a research, development, and deployment roadmap for the provision of high-performance computing systems for use by the research community in the United States.'' By putting OSTP in charge of developing the program's long-term vision, this provision will help ensure a robust planning process so that our national high-performance computing effort is not allowed to lag in the future.

H.R. 4218 lays out the foundation for a planning process involving several Federal agencies. It also makes clear that the Department of Energy, through its Office of Science, and the National Science Foundation, are the two lead agencies within the Federal Government responsible for providing U.S. researchers with access to the most advanced computing facilities in the world.

The legislation I am offering today complements H.R. 4218 by addressing in more detail the high-performance computing activities at the Department of Energy. This new legislation authorizes the implementation of a specific program that the Department will need to meet the mandate laid out in H.R. 4218.

More specifically, the bill I offer today requires the Secretary of Energy to establish and operate high-end computing facilities that are among the most elite machines in the world--truly ``leadership-class'' machines, sometimes referred to as ``ultrascale'' computers. My bill directs the Secretary to conduct advanced scientific and engineering research and development using these leadership class systems, and to continue to advance the capabilities of high-end computing hardware and software. These leadership-class computing facilities will be available on a competitive, merit-reviewed basis to researchers in U.S. industry, institutions of higher education, national laboratories, and other Federal agencies.

Last fall, the Department of Energy's Office of Science released its 20-year facilities plan, a prioritized list of the most important scientific facilities needed to advance multiple fields of scientific endeavor over the next two decades. The second highest priority identified on the Department's list was ``ultrascale computing.''

Ultrascale computing ranks highly on the Department of Energy's priority list because these computers are essential tools for achieving the next suite of scientific breakthroughs in a variety of disciplines. These powerful machines are used in the development of pharmaceuticals, in modeling the Earth's climate, and in applications critical to ensuring our national and homeland security. Computational science complements theory and experimentation in fields such as plasma physics and fusion, astrophysics, nuclear physics, and genomics. In many cases, dramatic breakthroughs will require increasing computing power by a factor of a hundred, or in some cases, by a factor of a thousand. While attaining these increases may seem daunting, the history of computer development has taught us that with a sustained commitment to research, such gains are within our reach.

I am pleased that the legislation I am offering today also complements a new initiative recently advanced by the Department. Last month, Secretary Abraham announced the selection of a team including Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and other partners to develop and build a new, ultrascale computing facility. When completed, this new facility will outpace the world's current ``number one'' computer, Japan's Earth Simulator. By renewing our commitment to high-end computing research and development at the Department of Energy and other

Federal agencies, the United States can regain its distinction as home to the world's most powerful computer.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 4516 calling on the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program of research and development to advance high-end computing systems, and to develop and deploy high-end computing systems for advanced scientific and engineering applications.

Federally-supported High End Computing and Computation (HECC) programs involve leading-edge research and development (R&D) in large, high performance computational systems, including hardware, software, architecture, and applications. HECC R&D extends the state of the art in computing systems, applications, and high end infrastructure to achieve the scientific, technical, and information management breakthroughs necessary to keep the U.S. in the forefront of the 21st century information technology (IT) revolution.

Federal HECC research continues to pave the way for revolutionary advances in science, technology, and national security and has become an important tool in the design and development of military and commercial products ranging from submarines and aircraft to automobiles. HECC researchers develop computation-intensive algorithms and software to model and simulate complex physical, chemical, and biological systems; information-intensive science and engineering applications; management and use of huge, complex information bases; and advanced concepts in quantum, biological, and optical computing.

This bill will help to further the Department of Energy's Leadership- Class Computing (LCC) initiative to develop the world's fastest science research supercomputer and make it available to all users. This legislation, endorses the goals of the High End Computing and Computation Coordinating Group to ensure an efficient deployment of resources for advanced computing research at the Department of Energy and the other federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce.

Federal funding of high-risk research in high end computing systems over the past decades has helped to bring us the personal computers, networks, and cell-phone infrastructures that have helped to fuel U.S. economic growth. This newest initiative will help continue that trend.