Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 589) to establish Department of Energy policy for science and energy research and development programs, and reform National Laboratory management and technology transfer programs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam 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 H.R. 589, the bill now under consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, H.R. 589, Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act, is the product of over 3 years of work by the Science, Space, and Technology Committee to advance basic research and set clear science priorities for the Department of Energy.

I thank my colleagues on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee who cosponsored this legislation, particularly Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson.

The Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act prioritizes basic research and science at the DOE national labs. This legislation also requires DOE to coordinate research across the Department and provides private industry with more access to the national labs so they can develop next generation technology.

Title I of H.R. 589 enables DOE to partner with the private sector and cuts red tape and bureaucracy in the DOE technology transfer process. The innovative early stage research performed at the labs can have great value to the private sector.

Because of a communication gap between the labs and the private sector, ideas and technology created in the national labs are often slow to reach the market. And Federal Government bureaucracy further discourages the private sector from using the unique state-of-the-art facilities at the national labs.

I thank the gentleman from Illinois, Representative Randy Hultgren, and the gentleman from Colorado, Representative Ed Perlmutter, for their initiative on this issue and for sponsoring similar legislation in the last Congress to advance these important reforms for our national labs.

Title II of the legislation requires the DOE to better manage and coordinate research efforts at the Department of Energy. This title also requires the DOE to provide a regular strategic analysis of science and technology activities within the Department. This will help identify key areas for collaboration across science and applied research programs. This review allows the Secretary to pinpoint programs that cost too much and that could be better accomplished by the private sector.

Title III of the bill provides statutory direction and priorities for the basic research programs within the DOE's Office of Science. This includes research and basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, high performance computing, nuclear physics, high energy physics, and fusion energy. These basic research programs are the core mission of the Department and lead to scientific discovery that can provide benefits across the economy. This title specifically authorizes basic research programs in solar fuels, electricity storage, exascale computing, and low-dose radiation.

In the last Congress, the House separately passed Science, Space, and Technology Committee legislation to authorize these four key basic research programs. I again thank Representative Hultgren, as well as the gentlemen from California--Representative Steve Knight and Representative Eric Swalwell--and the gentleman from Illinois, Representative Dan Lipinski, for sponsoring legislation authorizing these programs in the last Congress.

Finally, title IV of the legislation is the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act. I thank my Texas colleagues, Representative Randy Weber and committee Ranking Member Johnson, for advancing this bipartisan, bicameral legislation both in this Congress and in the last.

This title authorizes nuclear R&D activities at the DOE and harnesses and combines the strengths of the national labs, universities, and the private sector in a joint innovation initiative. Advanced nuclear reactor technology provides a great opportunity to make reliable, emission-free electricity available throughout the industrialized and developing world. The nuclear energy innovation language also provides a clear timeline for the DOE to complete a research reactor user facility within 10 years. This research reactor will enable proprietary and academic research to develop supercomputing models and also design next generation nuclear energy technology.

In summary, H.R. 589 represents a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to modernize and increase the productivity of the DOE national lab system, streamline DOE research programs, prioritize basic scientific research, and enable the development of next generation nuclear technology.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Perlmutter for his comments and again thank him for his work on this legislation.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Knight), who is the vice chairman of the Energy Subcommittee of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren), an active member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 589 provides basic research direction and good government reforms to ongoing DOE programs. This legislation establishes congressional priorities for the Department, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to quickly send this bill to the President's desk.

I thank the members of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee who provided valuable input into this legislation. This includes the cosponsors of the bill, Ranking Member Johnson, and Representatives Randy Weber, Steve Knight, Randy Hultgren, Frank Lucas, Dan Lipinski, Dana Rohrabacher, Elizabeth Esty, Brian Babin, Marc Veasey, Barbara Comstock, Ed Perlmutter, Mo Brooks, Paul Tonko, Jim Banks, Eric Swalwell, Andy Biggs, Zoe Lofgren, Neal Dunn, and Clay Higgins, Republicans and Democrats alike.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of H.R. 589.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank the chairman and the ranking member, Eddie Bernice Johnson, for bringing this bill to the floor today. It has been a long time in coming.

I rise in support of H.R. 589, the Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act. This bill would authorize important research and development at the Department of Energy to push the frontiers of science and find new ways to innovate and power our economy.

This bill would authorize comprehensive policy guidance for the DOE's Office of Science for the first time in its history. The Office of Science manages a portfolio, including research in supercomputing, materials science, nuclear physics, advanced biofuels, fusion energy, climate modeling, high energy physics, and a number of other areas across the spectrum of fundamental and applied research.

Additionally, the Office of Science is home to world-class user facilities used by private industry to collaborate with our national laboratories and provide our scientists with access to tools and resources to test the most pressing research questions in a variety of fields. The neutron sources, particle accelerators, and light sources, among many other Office of Science user facilities, are home to some of the most important scientific work conducted in America and represent some of the best partnerships our labs have with private industry. These activities and capabilities have never been given the proper statutory authority by this Congress, so this bill represents a landmark bipartisan effort.

H.R. 589 also includes the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, which I cosponsored again this year. By providing the tools and resources to nuclear scientists and engineers, this bill lays the groundwork for a future where reliable, clean nuclear energy is a major source of our electricity generation. This research could lead to advanced and safer nuclear reactors with the potential to use less nuclear fuel and produce far less waste.

H.R. 589 is not only bipartisan, but, as the chairman said, it represents a bicameral agreement that was reached last year during conference negotiations with the Senate on the comprehensive energy package. Given the urgent challenge of climate change and the growing competition around the world in many of these key research areas, we must keep working together with the Senate to get this bill signed into law this year.

I thank Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson for working together to get this bipartisan legislation before us today, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank Mr. Knight and especially my cosponsor, Mr. Hultgren, for the work that they have done on this bill generally, but particularly on title I of the bill, the Laboratory Modernization and Technology Transfer Act.

As Mr. Knight said, on this committee, we find places where there is common ground and where there is an ability to advance the interests of the United States of America. Sometimes we argue, sometimes we debate, sometimes we don't agree, but often we do. I appreciate their work as well as the chairman's work on a number of subjects that face us. I was proud to work with my friend Mr. Hultgren of Illinois to introduce this bill, the Modernization and Technology Transfer Act, in the last Congress.

Title I provides important tools to accelerate the commercialization of new technologies that are developed at our national labs. It extends the Agreement for Commercializing Technology pilot program while expanding the range of companies that are eligible to participate. We also allow labs to use their technology transfer funds as an incubator investment for projects that are developed in-house which demonstrate potential commercial opportunities.

Additionally, the bill encourages the further collaboration between university researchers and our national labs by creating a pilot program to reduce the financial burdens on our universities. I hope this pilot program unleashes the talent at our universities, like the Colorado School of Mines, the University of Colorado, and Colorado State University, to discover the next successful technology.

Madam Speaker, one may remember I represent Golden, Colorado, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL is the premier energy efficiency and renewable energy lab in the world, and title I of this bill provides labs like NREL more tools to bring life-changing innovations to consumers by partnering with private industry.

When revolutionary research is harnessed by our entrepreneurs and business leaders, startups with one or two employees can grow into companies that can create hundreds of quality jobs. I am proud to support this legislation, and I am proud to have worked with Mr. Hultgren in giving scientists and researchers in both the public and private sectors the tools and the freedom they need to unlock a new wave of innovation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, so I am going to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH OF Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber), who is the chairman of the Energy Subcommittee of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It is the product of a lot of hard work over the last 3 years. It helps our laboratories and our private industry stay at the forefront of science. I thank Chairman Smith of Texas for bringing this bill to the floor.

I urge passage of this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to give a sincere thank-you to our distinguished chairman, Mr. Smith--the chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology--for his work in this Congress and in past Congresses in bringing this bipartisan package of legislation to the floor.

I also thank my good friend and colleague Congressman Perlmutter from Colorado, who has been just an active joint member in moving this forward. I am so grateful for his efforts and his work.

Madam Speaker, the DOE Research and Innovation Act contains a number of bipartisan provisions that put in place clear research and development priorities so that Americans can maintain their leadership position on the world stage and continue attracting the best and the brightest to the only place they can do their work.

While I have the pleasure of representing Fermilab, our Nation's only dedicated high energy physics laboratory, I have also had the opportunity

to visit with and to meet researchers from across the Nation who rely on our national laboratory system to do their work. More than 30,000 researchers a year visit the DOE user facilities, such as the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, just outside my district. These facilities are normally operating 24/7, with researchers blocking off time--sometimes just minutes--to use equipment that no one university or business could build and maintain on its own. This is why our national labs are truly the crown jewel in our research ecosystem.

The DOE Research and Innovation Act includes key provisions from my prior legislation of improving technology transfer and helping get research from the ``valley of death'' to a point at which the private sector can pick it up and run with it. This legislation also frees up the labs to be more nimble and work more easily with outside entities, such as with nonprofits and universities.

Another provision in this legislation should, hopefully, be a key priority for the incoming administration. Right now, China not only has the fastest computer in the world, but the two fastest computers in the world. Legislation which this body previously passed and is included in this bill would call on the DOE to carry out a program to build an exascale computer, which is close to the speed of the human brain. The United States' computing capabilities have a wide-ranging use and applications, and the DOE has led the way in developing this technology.

One of the primary missions at the DOE is the maintenance of our current nuclear stockpile. This is largely carried out through complex simulations which require these increasingly powerful machines, but the crosscutting benefits of this research may have the greatest impact.

When the NIH began its work on sequencing the human genome, it was only a moonshot mission that many thought was not yet feasible. Computing facilities at the DOE basically proved the concept and allowed this work to be completed. In the era of precision medicine and with the recent passage of the 21st Century Cures, our computing facilities must be tapped to realize the benefits of targeted treatments and cures.

Among other research priorities, this legislation also calls on the DOE to resume its low dose radiation research program. This is something I supported in the last Congress, working off recommendations from the scientific community to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the human health impacts from low dose radiation.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this important bill. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their bipartisan work to begin this Congress by passing pro-growth, pro-science legislation.

I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their leadership on this.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 589, the Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act, sets congressional priorities for basic science research and nuclear energy R&D.

This legislation also includes text from my bill from the last Congress, H.R. 5638, the Solar Fuels Innovation Act. This language directs the Department of Energy to establish a basic research initiative in solar fuels. The solar fuel process, also known as artificial photosynthesis, harnesses energy from sunlight to create a range of storable chemical fuels, overcoming the biggest obstacle to maximizing the benefits of renewable technologies.

Researchers up and down the coast of California are undertaking this research from universities in southern California to the Berkeley lab in the Bay area. The research authorized in this legislation could solve this key scientific challenge and open the door for American entrepreneurs to develop the next generation of solar technology and train the next generation of researchers in chemistry, physics, and materials science.

H.R. 589 reaffirms the Federal Government's key role in research and development. My home State of California has long been a world leader in advanced science and high tech and is home to millions of entrepreneurs who are eager to engage and take advantage of the latest breakthroughs. Today we hear a lot of enthusiasm for clean energy, but the focus is on today's technology, not on fundamentally new approaches to energy technology that we make possible through early-stage research. In Congress, it is our responsibility to take the long-term view and be patient and make smart investments in basic research that can lead to the next big discovery. H.R. 589 establishes those long- term priorities.

This bill makes other important adjustments to the flexibility and utilization of DOE assets to give the U.S.' private sector a stronger edge, from the national laboratory partnerships with research groups to allowing the nuclear energy businesses to do their early-stage work on DOE sites, giving a huge boost to an industry that is about to take off.

I encourage my colleagues to support this very bipartisan, very supported piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H.R. 589, the Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act, which I am very pleased to co-sponsor.

This bill comprises a significant set of provisions that resulted from constructive negotiations with our Majority and with the Senate as part of the energy conference last year. I am also proud to note that many of these provisions were actually first proposed in the version of the American Competes Reauthorization Act that was sponsored by every Democratic Member of the Committee in the last Congress.

The bill includes what would be the first comprehensive authorization of the DOE Office of Science, which is the largest supporter of physical sciences research in the country. This is a nearly $6 billion office that manages 10 of our national laboratories, often called the crown jewels of our national research infrastructure. Yet thus far, unlike NSF, NASA, and nearly every other major scientific research agency stewarded by the federal government, the Office of Science has not received the statutory guidance and support that its capabilities and mission warrant. So passing this portion of the bill into law alone would be a big step in the right direction.

The bill also includes a number of important technology transfer provisions that previously passed the House as part of a bipartisan bill that I and many of my colleagues on the Committee co-sponsored. In addition, it would provide the first authorization of the promising Innovation Hub model for energy research, and it would enable greater private sector engagement with ARPA-E. Finally, this bill includes an updated and improved version of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, which I was happy to co-sponsor with my friend Mr. Weber in the last Congress.

I would like to thank Chairman Smith and his staff for working closely with us and our Senate counterparts to move beyond what began as, frankly, a rather contentious process to find common ground on a wide range of areas that will be critical to ensuring our nation's competitiveness and our clean energy future.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.