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FISCAL YEAR 1998 BUDGET AUTHORIZATION REQUEST: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE), ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (NOAA)
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1997
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met at 10:30 a.m., in room 2325 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ken Calvert, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Chairman CALVERT. We will now convene the hearing. Our first panel will please approach the witness table. The hearing will come to order.
This is a fourth in a series of hearings on the Fiscal Year 1998 Budget Authorization for programs under the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee.
Today we will hear testimony from witnesses representing a variety of organizations with very different views on Department of Energy research and development programs.
Later we will hear from both the Commercial Weather Services Association and the Weather Service Employees Organization on the operation of the National Weather Service.
We will also take additional testimony on the reauthorization of the National Sea Grant College Program, which will be acted on by the Full Science Committee this month.
The views and estimates presented to the Budget Committee shows bipartisan support for funding science programs at levels adequate to keep up with inflation.
However, keeping to a balanced budget plan will continue to put pressure on discretionary spending. That means we will still have to make difficult choices in dealing with the Administration's budget request.
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After visiting California's premier national laboratories during the recess, I am more convinced than ever that we must continue to give top priority to fundamental science programs.
The Clinton Administration has consistently submitted flat budget requests for science programs in order to request massive increases in marketing and export promotion programs. I will work during the budget process to reset those priorities.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and their specific suggestions for meeting our goals.
Before I introduce our first panel, let me turn to my friend from Pennsylvania, the acting Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Doyle, for his opening remarks.
Mr. DOYLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I see we have many people that are going to testify today, and I will not take a lot of time with opening comments.
This is a very important process that we are undertaking. I think we are all looking for a bipartisan commitment to deal with some very tough issues here with the Department of Energy's Budget.
I know those of us on this side of the aisle would like to be able to see that budget as soon as possible so that we can work together in the spirit of meeting the important needs of this country, and also being sensitive to the fiscal constraints that we are under.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Our first panel will be led off by Fred Smith, President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a leading think-tank on environmental public policy issues; followed by Anna Aurilio, a Staff Scientist for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group; David Baldwin, Senior Vice President for General Atomics of San Diego, and a leading physicist in diffusion energy programs, both there and earlier at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
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Ralph DeGennaro is Executive Director of Taxpayers for Common $ense.
Scott Sklar is Executive Director of a new organization, the Solar Unity Network. He has testified in earlier years as Director of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
And our final panelist, Mr. Aris Melissaratos, is a constituent of Mr. Doyle, so I am going to defer to him for an introduction.
Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Chairman, I thought you were just doing that because you were afraid of that last name.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DOYLE. Aris is a Vice President at Westinghouse Science, Technology and Quality, and he has the overall responsibility for the corporation's extensive science and technology operations.
We are pleased to have him here today and look forward to his testimony.
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you. Without objection, the full written testimony for each of you will be printed in the record.
We have two large panels of witnesses today, so I am going to ask for each of you to summarize your remarks in 5 minutes or less, if you so desire.
I am going to attempt to remind you with the gavel, so I want to remind you in advance of that. With that, Mr. Smith, your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF FRED L. SMITH, JR., PRESIDENT, THE COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. FRED SMITH. Thank you, Congressman. I am looking for the green, yellow, and red lights. I do not see any here.
I am Fred Smith, and I head the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and as indicated, we have long been involved in environmental, energy, and science policy questions.
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We are also working with Congressman Kasich on the Corporate Welfare Initiative, as some of the other panelists are, and some of the issues you are dealing with deal with that issue.
I should say that we were asked to comment on government support. We are a free market group; we accept no government support of any kind or support from any group that would compromise our principal position.
I do not think though that we should make too much of the fact that several of my co-panelists do accept government support. My friends in industry and my friends in the liberal community have a lot less problem with big government than we do on the conservative side.
If we are going to trim the federal leviathan, we are going to have to do a lot of hard and painful things. It is a pleasure to talk to a Committee that is well aware of the value of science and technology.
As you are all aware, in our modern society, anti-technology, anti-science elements have become very, very pervasive. But there are many, many good things that the Federal Government should not do, and many other good things that the Federal Government does not do very well.
And many of the elements in your proposed budget, I think, fall into that category. The goal of your Committee, I think, is to reframe the debate about science and technology, and to look at it in a somewhat different way.
If you look at what has been done to date in your Committees in the past, you've essentially said that we want to improve the track speeds of the horses, the science horses that run around the American economy.
Typically you've tried to pick good horses, and then fund them with federal dollars. There's an element for that, and that can do some good.
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But let me suggest that much of the problem of America's innovation world today stems less from having too little creative entrepreneurial talent in our society, but rather that we have created too many impediments to that knowledge, that entrepreneurial genius being translated into useful science results.
I think that rather than picking horses, picking winners, which is not something that government does well, you should try to remove the impediments, the tax, regulatory, and other impediments that have made it so hard for so many creative Americans to contribute to the science battle.
To summarize my comments pretty closely—there's a lot in the testimony, and I've touched on some of them here—one of the arguments is, does government need to fund this? That's the market failure argument.
Markets certainly aren't as perfect as we'd like to see, but you in the government are well aware that government doesn't always work as well as we'd like to see it, too. In the world of the blind, one-eyed institutions outperform, and the private sector certainly outperforms government in achieving useful science and technology for the American people.
Look at the EPA budget. The problem with EPA science is that it is an oxymoron. I have friends at EPA and they point out that I am too hard on them.
EPA, they say, does believe in good science, they're just not allowed to practice it. There's a real problem with an advocacy agency being given a scientific budget, and EPA epitomizes that.
I was at EPA for 5 years. There's a lot of bright people there. But the idea of an EPA scientist questioning the core elements of their belief that EPA should be doing more to save the world from horrible fates is unlikely to ever happen at EPA.
If you look at EPA's climate change budget, it is frightening the American people on, what, lead, EMF and other issues.
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We did a book recently called Haunted Housing, where we looked at the attempts to frighten Americans out of house and home by the EPA and other environmental groups. I commend it to you. I'll leave a copy for the Committee.
But generally speaking, EPA has done more to misinform, to alarm the American people, and to misuse and abuse the scientific process, and it goes way back to the NAPAP study that this Committee is undoubtedly familiar with and other areas.
EPA science cannot be done in the current context well. I would suggest that either you move that scientific function out of EPA totally, or you create a separate, independent office within EPA, a kind of office of science advocacy that would be an advocacy group for science and technology against EPA's anti-science and technology biases.
I am a Catholic, and the Catholic Church had that problem and has addressed it in a way that I think has some merit for the U.S. government. The Catholic Church found too many people coming forward, claiming to be saints.
They decided to put some scrutinizing on that. Not everybody, they believe, was not saintly, so they created a process.
There would be a group, an advocate of advocatus dei, who would advocate that the guy was saintly and really merited sainthood. But there was a devil's advocate who argued very strongly. He was just like me and you and a nice guy, but no saint.
I think that if EPA had pro-technology and anti-technology arguments, an advocate for the beneficial effects of technological change, we would have a much more meritorious use of science in the U.S. government.
I think we should take that seriously. EPA is an anti-science agency. It needs to be balanced somehow, either internally or externally with pro-science forces.
In the DOE area, you are looking at a lot of energy subsidy areas. The arguments you'll hear over and over again are, we are not in favor of subsidies, but infant industries need help to get their footing.
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Look, one thing you know from the history of subsidized industries is that infant industries never grow up. We are seeing that over and over again, and we should not subsidize any industries, whether they're pro-industry or pro-environmental.
Solar power is no more meritoriously deserving of government subsidies than nuclear power. My friends on the liberal side of the aisle, I think, sometimes think that since the nuclear's got it, why don't we get it?
The nuclear subsidies have done more to discredit that industry than anything out there. And now we see a pampered pet of the political process of the past that can barely survive in the real economic realities of today.
Solar power deserves better; it should not be seeking subsidies today.
You are doing a lot on waste sites. Waste sites are an important element, but they're absorbing a massive amount of money because we have no scientific criteria for how clean is clean, or how risky is risky.
And we never will as long as these are politically managed sites. I would suggest that you create what I call a reverse Dutch auction where you basically put it inside out and see how much money it will take for somebody to take this ugly duckling off your hands, a kind of a dowry concept.
How much money will it take to take these ugly things of the Federal Government and make them—and privatize them, assuming the liability and assuming the responsibility of ensuring that those sites are sanitized, become as clean as necessary to create no harm to their neighbors. They're never going to be handled well in the political process.
NOAA, there's a lot to say about NOAA. The one thing that we focus in on and doing some work on internally, is how do we bring some of the creative genius that has made seismology and other sciences such an impressive force in the American economy, and bring those to the oceanic resource?
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Our argument is that private property, the ability to own the underground resources of minerals and so forth, encourage people to get smart about what was under the ground, and, in effect, created the science of seismology, which has done so much to make American earth sciences one of the leaders in the world.
Oceanic scientists have suffered because no one owns the oceans of the world or the fisheries of the world, and therefore there's less incentive to invest in becoming smart in that area. If we want to become smart, we should make it possible for people to profit from becoming more intelligent.
You've already passed the RAPID bill, and other bills that will ''educate'' the American public. I am afraid that I agree with Congressman Ehlers here that government is not the most credible source of reassurance to the American public today.
And the elements of government reassurance programs often illustrate that they less than reassure. The attempts to encourage people in Nevada about the nuclear site safety, if you know the history, actually led to more people questioning the wisdom of that site, not less.
There are ways to communicate in the technology risk areas, and I have a lot to say about that, but I do not think it is by giving big budgets to government agencies that nobody trusts in the first place.
The final thing is, let me just summarize what I am trying to say generally. Your Committee is part of a Congress and an America that is trying to rediscover its way to a wiser future.
We have tried the way of big government and letting the taxpayers fund all good things. We are now trying to sort out what things government needs to do, and what things are better transferred to the private sector.
The challenge, as I have said earlier, is not to pick winners, but is to encourage an environment where the creative energies of the people of this country can more effectively be used to benefit this country directly.
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In a way we are in the same sort of a problem that the Soviet Union was in the former planned economies of the world are. If you talk to those people, the first thing they always come to is:
What should we do?
What should government do to encourage a rich country?
What should we subsidize?
What technology should we pick?
I think what we can tell them, and we know how to tell them is. do not do that. You are no better at picking those winners than you were at picking the winners in the past.
Reduce your tax and regulatory burden, deregulate your economies so that you place less impediments to creative energies becoming creative products, and begin to allow your people to do what all peoples can do when they're free to do so, create a better world for all peoples.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fred Smith follows:]
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Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I loved your testimony, even though it did run a little over the 5 minutes. Thank you very much.
Ms. Anna Aurilio. Sorry, but some of the names today are hard to pronounce.
STATEMENT OF ANNA AURILIO, STAFF SCIENTISTS, U.S. PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP, WASHINGTON, DC
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Ms. AURILIO. That's all right, thank you.
My name is Anna Aurilio. I am a Staff Scientist with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. As you may know, we are the national office for state PIRGs around the country which work on environmental, consumer, and good government issues.
So I am very pleased to testify today, mostly on DOE's budget, but I'll touch a little bit on EPA's budget as well, because these issues bridge our whole spectrum of issues.
First of all, we have been working, sometimes surprisingly well, with groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and several others that are on this panel and the following panel, as part of the Stop Corporate Welfare Coalition.
U.S. PIRG, a few years ago, began working on cutting what we call polluter pork programs that hurt taxpayers twice; once because they encourage environmentally damaging programs, and twice because we have to pay for them.
So we have joined up with several of these other groups to take aim at these, both in the context of the Green Scissors Coalition, and also in the context of the Stop Corporate Welfare Coalition convened by Budget Committee Chairman, John Kasich. Several of the programs that I will talk about today have been targeted by both those coalitions.
When it comes to the federal budget, we feel that the Federal Government should stop wasting money on polluting subsidies. Our staff and our members are outraged that as we work for cleaner air, cleaner water, a cleaner environment overall, the Federal Government is actually spending billions of dollars—in fact, we found 57 programs that if cut or reformed would save $36 billion, on programs that hurt the environment.
Americans around the country, as we have seen in poll after poll, support spending money on programs that will lead to a cleaner environment. When it comes to picking those programs that have to go, they overwhelmingly pick the polluting programs.
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This is brought out in a recent poll that I have mentioned in my testimony, where most folks, most voters who were asked what programs should go first, what programs should be cut, picked nuclear and fossil energy programs.
So, on nuclear energy, we agree with Fred Smith that government subsidies haven't helped the nuclear business, and now we are stuck with the big problem of radioactive waste and what to do with it.
The number one thing we should not do with radioactive waste is reprocess it. That's what folks are trying to do at Savannah River, and also at Argonne National Labs.
A recent report by DOE that came out called ''Linking Legacies,'' looked at all of the wastes that were generated as part of the Weapons Complex facilities, and found that the number one source, both in terms of amounts and radioactivity of the wastes that we are going to spend billions of dollars to clean up was reprocessing, the chemical separations process.
The second thing, the second reason that we should not—and one of the programs that involves reprocessing is under the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee, which is the pyroprocessing at Argonne National Labs. Pyroprocessing is reprocessing.
There was a letter recently sent by four scientists, one a McArthur Prize Fellowship winner, another a patent-holder of several processes for reprocessing. They say pyroprocessing is reprocessing.
They also say that they have significant proliferation concerns about this technology. Because pyroprocessing facilities are more compact than conventional facilities, they are easier to conceal. The world would become a more dangerous place.
Finally, there was a National Research Council report on pyroprocessing at Argonne. They've been doing these periodically.
It has been finding more and more problems with the program. First of all, it is now saying that more time and money than originally planned will be needed to achieve the program's objectives.
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Second, it raises troubling questions about several aspects of the research that's actually going on. I'll just touch on that real briefly, but I think it is important to note that not only is this a wrong-minded program, but it is not even behaving or performing as well as it should.
First of all, it says that there's a lack of coordination between the two labs in Illinois and Idaho, and this has led to both duplication of efforts and things like sizing equipment wrong. They'll design the equipment in Illinois, they'll send it to Idaho, and they've made changes and it doesn't work.
And that's because both of those labs have differing objectives for the programs. It is very, very hard to conduct research efficiently if the two people, the two entities that are conducting it do not have the same objectives.
Second, and very importantly as far as proponents' claims that this will somehow help us reduce the amount of waste that we have to deal with, is, the machines aren't working right. We are not getting the separation efficiencies that they were touting for this waste.
This is the whole point of this, to separate out different components of nuclear fuel, and they're not able to achieve that.
Last, but not least, some of the protocols, the testing protocols to decide whether or not this is a good way to deal with waste, that is, what will happen to the new waste forms created by this technology, according to the National Research Council, says that the test protocol that focuses on the particular mechanism that's involved is incorrect, at best, and potentially misleading at worst.
So they are trying to solve a problem which we feel doesn't exist, and they're not achieving their goals.
I'll touch real briefly on some of the other programs that we'd like to see cut. The Advanced Light Water Reactor Program was terminated by the Clinton Administration.
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In its place, mysteriously arose a new program called the Nuclear Energy Security. DOE doesn't even know what the program should do.
They want an advisory board to be formed to decide. And this program is duplicative with several other programs that are currently underway.
One is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission funded by nuclear power plant fees, is already conducting much of the safety research that would be done by this program.
Second, there's already a nuclear university research program that conducts university research. There's no reason for this program to add to that.
Fusion energy, I believe the next witness will talk about fusion energy. We believe it is possible to generate environmentally benign fusion energy. DOE's program isn't the way to do it, and there are serious, serious questions and new scientific problems that are cropping up with the current reliance on this magnetic fusion technology.
We also oppose fossil energy programs. We do not think we need to be continuing to subsidize a mature industry that only exacerbates global climate change problems.
Finally, I'd like to touch on the programs that we do like. We do believe, and Americans do support, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, other renewable energy programs, and energy efficiency programs.
These programs will help us build a clean, affordable energy future, and in the case of energy efficiency programs, will save consumers money. We are a consumer group. We are very pleased that some of the advances made in DOE's energy efficiency programs has saved consumers billions of dollars and will continue to do that.
This is pollution prevention at its best. We wouldn't have to come down so hard on polluters if we didn't use polluting technologies, and this is a way to achieve that.
Finally, the EPA budget: we released a report 2 weeks ago where we looked at compliance with the Clean Water Act. We found that fully 20 percent of major industrial facilities in this country were in significant non-compliance with the waste water discharge permits, at least once in 15 months.
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These are significant violations. Congress should fully fund EPA's budget, because EPA needs to enforce the law. We need to clean up our water.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Ms. Aurilio follow:]
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Chairman CALVERT. Thank you for your testimony.
Next, Mr. David Baldwin.
STATEMENT OF DAVID BALDWIN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, GENERAL ATOMICS
Mr. BALDWIN. Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to talk to you about the fusion research program. I am with General Atomics, which hosts the DIII–D Tokamaks, which itself is a national center with about 60 participating institutions conducting plasma science research.
Before I talk about fusion, let me make a comment about energy R&D. I think it is very important for this Committee to support energy R&D across a broad front.
By almost anybody's estimate, the world demand for energy is going to at least double, if not considerably more over the next 40 to 50 years, driven by both population increase and increased per capita usage.
All of the energies in the mix—renewables, fusion and advanced fusion—I believe are going to play a role in that future mix.
Turning to fusion, which has the additional aspect that it investigates and relies upon development of a very fundamental science, that of high temperature plasma physics, this year has brought good news and bad news.
The good news is that in both the Japanese Tokamak and soon in the European Tokamak, we have reached a very important milestone of scientific break-even conditions. The bad news has to do with the budget against this picture, and I'll come back to that in a moment.
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We have seen a reduction in our budget of about 40 percent, and this has forced a restructuring within our domestic program. That restructuring has a real dual-pronged strategy.
On the domestic level, it is to use the science that we have discovered to make the fusion approach more attractive, more attractive than the Tokamak. The Tokamak has been a very successful experimental tool to teach us the science.
What we now want to do is use that science to make the product attractive. If I may borrow from the DuPont Company, it is ''better fusion through science.''
On the international scene, we want to preserve the burning plasma physics with the ITER project. That's currently the project being pursued internationally to get at the burning plasma physics.
If that goes forward internationally, I think it is very important for us to be part of that, even if we have to be as a junior partner.
The third element of this restructuring is to broaden our base to bring more of the university element into the research program, both in projects at the universities, and through increased participation such as in the larger facilities, such as we have been pursuing at DIII–D at General Atomics.
The effects of the budget reduction have been very severe. This week, the TFTR at Princeton was forced to shut down. The Department shut down a productive operating facility with a $1 billion investment in order to save about $20-25 million a year.
The DIII–D at General Atomics and the C–MOD at MIT are running about 8 weeks a year, very inefficient use of those investments. The Department has been very slow, because of these constraints, to start the research in alternatives to Tokamaks and in the broader science base which it wants to carry out in the universities.
When the Fusion Energy Advisory Committee last year laid out the strategy which led to this restructuring, it identified that the minimum budget that they could see for pursuing that strategy was about $250 million a year.
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This is consistent with the number that everybody has got who has looked seriously at the fusion program. The base program requires about $200 million a year, and on top of that is our involvement in the ITER Project, which is about $50–55 this year, again, arriving at the $250 number.
With a budget of that sort, we could increase our work in the alternatives in the university basic science programs. We could make efficient use of the existing and currently running Tokamaks.
We could embark on a new initiative in computing which we would like to do in fusion, which would capitalize on the large scale computing techniques being developed in the Defense Programs part of the Department of Energy.
Finally, I'll come to the criteria laid down by this Committee for the projects which warrant its support. They dealt with long-term, high risk, cutting edge research that was firmly implanted in the agency mission, involved the high level of international and national participation and partnerships among multiple institutions.
I hold that there's no program which more fits those criteria than the fusion energy research program, and I urge your support for it. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baldwin follows:]
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Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Baldwin.
Mr. Ralph DeGennaro.
STATEMENT OF RALPH DeGENNARO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON $ENSE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. DEGENNARO. Good morning, and thank you. My name is Ralph DeGennaro. I am Executive Director of Taxpayers for Common $ense. We are dedicated to cutting wasteful spending and subsidies and balancing the budget through research and citizen education.
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We are politically independent, and we seek to reach out to taxpayers of all political beliefs, working toward a government that costs less, makes more sense, and inspires more trust. We accept no Federal Government grants.
I'd like to note that many of the budget cuts that are being talked about today have support from a variety of political perspectives. We are the lead taxpayer participants in the Green Scissors Campaign that Ms. Aurilio has already discussed.
This campaign puts out the ''Green Scissors'' report. The latest one is 1997, recommending 57 separate budget cuts.
Our symbol is these green scissors. This is very simple. It unites the taxpayer and the environmental movements to say let's cut spending and subsidies that do not make sense, and that environmentalists believe harm the environment.
This is not a new initiative. It's been around 3 years.
We have had a number of successes. We have killed 11 programs, saved almost $20 billion. And this is the coming thing in both the environmental movement, in the taxpayer movement, and is going to be one of our primary approaches for the age of austerity for the next 20 years.
To be clear, Mr. Chairman, my testimony today is presented only on behalf of Taxpayers for Common $ense, not the Green Scissors Campaign.
Our brief recommendations are that Congress cut corporate welfare, eliminate all energy subsidies, and the Department of Energy, transferring its essential functions elsewhere, and cut the science fiction programs like the NASA Space Station, if the Committee feels that more money needs to be spent on other science.
We are pleased to be a member of the Stop Corporate Welfare Coalition led by John Kasich, and including Democratic Congressman Rob Andrews. The 12 budget cuts identified by this Coalition announced on January 28th, include the Plutonium Pyroprocessing Program, all fossil energy R&D, and the Clean Coal Technology Program.
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We were also pleased to endorse in March, a corporate welfare package of 13 budget cuts proposed by Senator Judd Gregg. Among others, that package included the Clean Coal Technology Program, Plutonium Pyroprocessing, and the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program.
Mr. Chairman, this is the 1996 Welfare Reform Act that applies to the least among us in our society, mothers with three children, getting by on a couple of hundred bucks a month. This law which, like it or not, is the law of the land, embodies what are supposed to be the values of our society.
If you do not need the money, you shouldn't take it. If you can use some money to get started, but then you can establish your own independence, that's the way it is supposed to work.
Mr. Chairman, it is time to apply these values to corporate America. Some of the folks sitting at this table with me are distinguished scientists, wonderful people, but represent corporations that do not need the money that you are trying to give them.
Anyone who doubts this needs to know the story of the Advanced Light Water Reactor Program. This program was supposed to be 5 years. It went 6 because of a dispute about when that 5 years ended.
This year, the Administration has requested more money to keep this program going. Welfare mothers are told 5 years and that's it.
Why can't we tell the same to some of the corporations sitting here? The Westinghouse Corporation is a participant in the consortium that gets the money from the Advanced Light Water Reactor Program.
The Westinghouse Corporation had revenues, I believe, of $6 billion in 1995. Why can't we say it is time to end corporate welfare for these corporations?
The Committee's biggest opportunity for savings is in the Department of Energy. And among all federal energy programs generally—and I would include in that, tax breaks which often get overlooked—we favor a level playing field.
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Let's eliminate everybody's subsidies and let them fight it out.
Because of our frustration with trying to kill these Department of Energy programs which then get brought back to life, and about the seeming imperviousness of the Department of Energy to the messages coming from the taxpayers and the Congress, we have concluded that it is time to eliminate the Department of Energy, that it is beyond reform.
We need to transfer essential functions elsewhere. Create a new Defense cleanup agency dedicated solely to cleaning up and shutting down, and that would also deal with federal military bases. It should be funded out of the Defense budget.
Second, maintain the principle of civilian control of nuclear weapons by finding an appropriate federal entity to have that responsibility.
In the last 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to note on a broader theme, that several science investment initiatives have been proposed recently, among them by Senator Graham and Congressman Brown.
It may be that they're good science programs that you can spend money on. We do not object to science spending, per se, or even to increasing science spending if it makes sense.
But you need to pay for it. Taxpayers will not support these kinds of increases unless they know that their money is being used wisely.
That's why we think scientists need to remember their math. Let's cut programs like the $94 billion Space Station, the biggest single civilian project in the entire federal budget.
Scientists have already told you this program is not needed. In 1993, the presidents of 10 scientific societies said in a joint statement that the Space Station is, quote, ''a multibillion dollar project of little scientific or technical merit that threatens valuable space-related projects and drains the scientific vitality of participating nations.''
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Since then NASA has actually cut the amount of science on the station and this program continues to receive in excess of $2 billion a year, enough that could offset the spending increases that Senator Graham and Congressman Brown seek. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DeGennaro follows:]
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Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Mr. Scott Sklar.
STATEMENT OF MR. SCOTT SKLAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOLAR UNITY NETWORK, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. SKLAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is great to be in front of the Committee.
The Solar Unity Network was created by the 150 national manufacturers of solar equipment and components and photovoltaic, solarthermal, and solar water heating to do some more policy education on the value of this technology and the benefits of this industry.
Ninety-six was an historic year. We ribbon-cut four automated solar manufacturing plants in the United States.
Ninety-seven will be better. We'll be ribbon-cutting six automated solar manufacturing plants in the United States.
In fact, I brought the first set of automated manufacturing roofing shingles that come from Mr. Ehlers's State, out of ECD. And this is the ribbon cut of this plant in April, and this produces—these are shingles. They go on the roof, and they produce electricity, the world's first automated manufactured shingles.
These plants came not out of the ether. These came out of an orchestrated program that began in the Bush Administration to drive pure technology, new technology into the marketplace.
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And that is my point today. There is a difference between going along—and I happen to agree with the speaker here at the right, that there's a point that you tell the bird to fly out of the nest, but do not throw the eggs out of the nest.
The issue is, you have emerging technology that needs to go somewhere. Let me talk about the broader issues.
The broader issues that I see facing you is, do you revert back to high risk R&D, and not deal with the applied and validation side of national R&D programs?
I am one strong proponent that this is lunacy. You might as well just send the money to Germany and Japan who mine U.S. pure R&D better than we do.
The fact is that, again, in the Bush Administration, many of our programs, we sat down with and said, do we want pure R&D that sits in laboratories and that ultimately those who are more financed and able, mine that, or do we want to make sure if the U.S. taxpayer puts the money in, it ultimately benefits the U.S. taxpayer?
So, what we agreed to in the Bush Administration—and I again agree with many of the speakers here to the right of me—that if you are going to work with immature industries on absolutely new technology, that what you do is, they have to put their money up front. They have to cost-share.
What we did is the most highly cost-shared set of programs, frankly with the least profitable set of industry to drive technology out the door. And we have had stunning success. I will outline that a little later.
The second issue is corporate welfare. We agree, the U.S. taxpayer ought not to support mature industries in incremental improvements of technology. The marketplace should deal with that.
But I want to contrast with my bearded brother to the right, both ideologically and at the end of the table to the right, that virtually every technological evolution, everything we enjoy in this country—and I mean airplanes, semiconductors—came out of Federal Government support.
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This was not immaculate conception. We drove to be leaders in the world. Government played a role.
The issue for you is, what's the appropriate role? The appropriate role is, you want R&D to be relevant and get to the public, but you want the corporations—it has to be new technology. It has to be immature technology, and it has to be cost-shared equally or you can't play.
A lot of the other programs that Green Scissors targets are not well cost-shared and they—it is incremental improvement technology.
The third issue is, why is energy important? And this is also where I want to disagree with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Energy is intrinsic to everything we do in our society. The extraction, conversion and utilization of energy is the single largest cause of air and water pollution, is the single largest cause of emissions relating to climate change.
The marketplace does not value that, so therefore, if it is in the public interest, the government has to decide what to do. Importing energy is the largest component of our trade debt, $65 billion a year and it is going to grow to $100 billion a year, from 50 percent or more. The marketplace does not value that.
Finally, national security, we spent $8 billion to protect that Middle East oil, and at some point we have got to do more here.
Photovoltaics, if you look at page 4 of my testimony, shows a chart that Japan is spending $182 million a year; Germany, $95 million; compared to the United States at $60 million. Why is that?
They do not believe in philanthropy. It is enabling technology, and it is a technology that drives advanced displays, through capacitors, new modular energy technology and communication technology.
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The countries that lead in this will be global leaders, not only for the 2 billion people that do not have electricity, and accounting for 70 percent of our exports, but the other billion that get less than 10 hours a day of electricity.
So what we did, again starting in the Bush Administration, is to drive new technology. I brought the thin film technology, new materials, with new encapsulation, not only roofing shingles, this stuff goes on decks of boats, is already incorporated in over half the cellular and microwave repeater stations in this country, and is driving the world.
The issue that we are trying to do in photovoltaics, which again is a third to a half of what the Japanese or Germans are spending, is the fact that we will lose global market leadership, and you will fall into VCR syndrome where you import the very technology you create. What a great legacy to leave.
I know I am at the end, and I will say one thing: The Appropriations Committees have zeroed out resource assessment, something, the only thing the Federal Government can do to be able to track what renewable resources and where and how you can access them. They have zeroed out solar international, not-for-subsidizing markets, but learning about the markets and making sure there's the technical capability. And the hydrogen program is a natural gas program, not a renewable program.
This Committee needs to drive the research to make sure that things that only the Federal Government can do, that the private sector can't, is not lost. Thank you for hearing me out.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sklar follows:]
Insert offset folios 62-73
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, thank you for your testimony.
Our final panelist is Mr. Melissaratos.
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STATEMENT OF ARIS MELISSARATOS, VICE PRESIDENT, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND QUALITY DIVISION, WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION, PITTSBURGH, PA
Mr. MELISSARATOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Doyle, and honorable members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to participate on this panel, and hear firsthand, the spectrum of views that you all face in the political realities in our magnificent system here.
I feel a lot more respect for the challenges in the decisionmaking process that you all face. I wasn't aware that I would be representing big, bad corporate America here today.
I thought I was representing the 500 superb scientists and engineers that work at the Westinghouse Science and Technology Center in Mr. Doyle's district.
My written testimony speaks to the support and enhancement that we are seeking for two specific programs, the Advanced Turbine System, and the Advanced Concept Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Program, where our corporation, in conjunction with 200 university and small business partners have worked collaboratively with the Department of Energy to advance the state of the art in fossil fuel power generation.
I share the views of my fellow panelists on the need for cleaning up the environment, for saving the planet. However, the economic realities of gaining the incremental improvements in these so-called mature industries are that the market will not pay for these things.
And to achieve the 25 percent improvement in efficiencies and therefore the cost reductions for energy that our economy needs to become and to stay globally competitive, it takes collaborative investment between industry and government.
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The solid oxide fuel cell, when coupled with the advanced turbine systems, either the industrial side or the utility side, will achieve energy efficiencies in the 70 to 75 percent range. These are completely impossible to be achieved with any kind of market paying current technologies.
Further, I want to make the point that I fully agree that it takes federal research support across the spectrum of the energy sectors. We are, as a Nation, reliant on fossil energy and nuclear energy.
To get to the more advanced, less economically feasible forms that have been discussed today takes significant investment. Our corporation is working across that whole spectrum.
But I am a firm believer that it takes the collaborative efforts of the superb scientists in the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency to push the state of the art, and to keep American companies competitive in the global marketplace.
My colleague from General Atomics talked about fusion and ITER. One of my scientists is Chairman of the ITER and Fusion Energy Committees. He just came back from Japan.
The Japanese government wants ITER stationed there. The Canadian government is pushing hard to have ITER stationed in Canada.
It belongs in this country. We need to be a participant. We cannot fall behind.
So I am a strong supporter of R&D spending at all levels in our government. It is not corporate welfare. We need to help our corporations compete on the global marketplace because German companies, Japanese companies are buying up American companies, but more importantly, drying up American jobs and moving these jobs to other lands.
I believe that is a serious economic and political consequence that we face. As one of my colleagues earlier said, all technological breakthroughs came out with government support.
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The Department of Defense, and now the Department of Energy is playing a major role. I want to comment and thank the superb scientists and the Department of Energy's Federal Energy Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh and Morgantown who are working with scientists in universities and companies like mine around the country, to push and improve the state of the art to meet the very same kind of objectives that our colleagues to the right would like to see met.
That happens only with collaboration and with putting each of these elements of investment in proper perspective in order for us to collaboratively get there, to evolve into the clean, energy efficient economy that we all strive for, and as we dream to save the planet.
Thank you for this opportunity. Again, my written testimony covers our support for the Advanced Turbine System and the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Program, which are on the verge of economic feasibility 5 to 7 years from now, a timeframe for which the current U.S. markets will definitely not pay for it.
The restructuring utility industry will not allow power to be produced at such clean levels at the cost that the marketplace will pay. So we need help from the Federal Government to get us there. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Melissaratos follows:]
Insert offset folios 74-81
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you for your testimony.
Now, we'll begin our questioning period. We'll attempt to limit that to 5 minutes. I am sure if we need another cycle through, we can accommodate members with additional questions.
First I have a question for Fred Smith. I enjoyed your opening statement. As a comment, while people may not trust government to make the right choices, generally in the environmental area, they probably trust the business community even less.
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Why should people trust free market environmentalism to protect their health and safety more than they trust what we have now, the regulatory state?
Mr. FRED SMITH. I think that that's a very good question.
Generally the argument is that trust in our society has been collapsing everywhere. All institutions in America have lost trust over the last several decades.
I think that part of the reason is that lack of trust is justified. As we have tried to do everything through the political process, and the political process has been captured by special interests of a lot of sorts, people have tended to view authoritarian information as somehow biased information for a lot of different reasons.
The challenge I think we have is to begin to create decentralized sources of information so people trust the things and the groups they trust. Environmentalists tend to trust environmentalists. Some people do trust their local business groups and so forth.
I do not think we can achieve that trust through centralized dissemination of information because most of us in America are now aware that there are very strong influences that bias that.
EPA will not say anything negative that would reduce the—the reason I think you can trust, in a way, a business group a little bit more, is that a business group may take a new technology, nuclear power and so forth, especially ones that are really in the market, not in sort of the hothouse plant of nuclear power, and if they guessed wrong, they thought it was a good idea, they went out and invested a lot of money and they're wrong——
It turns out it is not going to be a viable technology, they can reprogram those monies. They'll have to absorb the losses, but they can move on to a new area.
Political agencies are locked into their organic acts. They do not have the ability to say, well, we thought climate change might be a really serious threat to America, but looking at the satellite data readings and so forth, we realize we have overstated it. Let's go out now and worry about whether or not we are having excessive erosion around stream banks in Arkansas.
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They can't do that because EPA and other agencies are locked into a mission. If their mission is no longer relevant as it was once thought, then they just have to have a lower budget priority.
Agencies do not do that. Business can. The ability of a business to reprogram itself at least gives us an evolutionary hope that over time it will better replicate what is true than we can expect from an agency that's locked into an area that no longer is socially relevant.
Chairman CALVERT. Good answer.
Mr. Baldwin, your final sentence in your written testimony states that the increase in the fusion budget to $250 million would enable a disproportionate increase in the program's productivity.
Could you explain that to the Committee?
Mr. BALDWIN. It really is a question of what I will call fixed costs versus variable costs in operating facilities and things of that sort. I'll use my own facility as an example.
Simply to be able to operate the machine at all requires maintaining a staff of about 100 technicians and engineers. This, in turn, supports a similar number of scientists that would be able to perform experiments.
But there is, in a sense, a fixed cost associated with that, and we are driven down right now to very close to the fixed costs of maintaining the facility. So a 10 percent increment in dollars allows a lot more actual use of the facility. That's the sense in which I meant it, that it is very nonlinear in this regime.
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
One other question regarding Tokamaks. As you know, some have been critical of Tokamaks—I read an article just recently—because they seem to be so complex and expensive that no utility in the marketplace would ever even consider buying one.
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Would you comment on that?
Mr. BALDWIN. I am very pleased to comment on that, because I have held many of those same concerns myself, and I have actually written on that subject.
But it is an historical fact that the Tokamaks have been the most successful experiment that we have had available, experimental facility available to us for learning the plasma physics. Whether or not it turns out to be the most successful reactor is a separate question.
There are different criteria for a power plant. These involve cost and complexity, all the things you alluded to.
So my very strong belief is that we—it is important for the fusion program now to take the science that we have learned in the Tokamak and then to readdress the question of how do you really make attractive and economic fusion?
One possibility is that we can improve the Tokamak to meet that criteria, but we should not limit it to that, and we should broaden our scope to apply that science to optimize, if you will, the attractiveness of the machine employing that science.
I use the slogan, ''better fusion through science.'' It really was to try to use the science that we have learned in order to improve the fusion product.
As we look back in time, the Tokamak was the simplest device in terms of its physics that we could use in order to learn that physics. It is a little like climbing a mountain.
You can see that you took a path that was the simplest path to get where you are, but when you get high enough on the mountain you can begin to see a better path to the top. It is that sense that we would very much like to begin to broaden our program into what we call the alternates, that is, the non-Tokamaks, in order to get at just the issue you are talking about.
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Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Mr. Doyle.
Mr. DOYLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Where do I begin?
You know they say politics makes strange bedfellows, and this panel was living testimony of that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DOYLE. I have a couple of questions. Mr. Smith, I can appreciate where your testimony is coming from.
I think a lot of us that are for balancing the federal budget—and I am a Democrat who supports doing that—are trying to look within this framework of how we do that.
When I look at our efforts in research and development, we put a lot of money into basic research as we move towards applied research. There are partnerships that develop between the Federal Government, academia, the private sector.
And then at some point, we cut the umbilical cord, hopefully, and move on to the next thing. That seems to me to be a logical progression and the way we should go.
The thought of abandoning all research and development in this country, I think, is a scary proposition.
There was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal where they had done a survey of 1,500 economists who said that—and this is always funny when we talk about economists or lawyers. But they did a survey of 150 economists who said they thought that the right government policies could help boost economic growth in America, and specifically singled out that money spent in education and research and development would probably—approximately half of these economists felt that would probably be the biggest bang we could get for our dollar, to focus monies in those directions.
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I am going to pose a couple of questions and let you respond to this.
And, Ms. Aurilio, I am curious about how you distinguish. You call fossil energy research and development corporate welfare, but you do not seem to apply that same label to those technologies that you like such as solar or energy efficiencies, and I am wondering why the money that we give in those areas aren't corporate welfare, and the monies that we give to fossil energy is corporate welfare?
And I'll throw one last thing out. Assuming that you and I are both living on the same planet for the next couple of years, we continue to be heavily dependent, some 80 percent or better, of our energy needs, on fossil energy.
If we are all concerned about a clean environment, why would we give up our efforts to find ways to burn fossil fuels cleaner and more efficiently? Why would we abandon that effort if the concern is for the environment, and if the reality is that for 80 percent of our energy needs, we are still going to be using fossil energy down the road?
It seems to me to be not the environmentally sound thing to do, even if we do favor developing and encouraging these new technologies that are in the more infancy than the mature technologies. I don't understand how that is environmentally sound.
After I let you two react to that, I am going to give Dr. Melissaratos a chance from the corporate side to just talk about where Westinghouse would be today in terms of its research and development if the Federal Government didn't fund any federal R&D.
If you had to go this all on your own as a private company, where would we be today at Westinghouse in regards to your research and development?
Now that I got all those questions—I learned as a new member that if you ask one question, you take up all my time answering it and then I don't get to ask a second one.
[Laughter.]
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Mr. DOYLE. So I have thrown out about four, and you guys can have a ball now.
Mr. Fred SMITH. If we stay in this process long enough, we get fairly intelligent about it; right?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Fred SMITH. Well you have asked some very good questions. I think the first one you have asked—well, let's be honest: we are not going to go cold turkey on the federal R&D budget in the short run, so the kind of doomsday problems we face here aren't likely to materialize.
But I think in a way what I am trying to argue is somewhat different. I am arguing that by looking only at picking the horses, we've failed to look at alternative approaches that might offer a better payoff, or at least an alternative, less costly way of doing it.
And my friends from the solar/air power industry I think both have a tendency, really, that is a little different. Solar power is an infant industry; we have all those kinds of things. But let me suggest, one of the reasons we are in a somewhat under-investment status in solar power and other appropriate technologies is earlier government policies.
One of the other elements of the anti-corporate welfare is the Rural Electrification, or the RUSA, the Rural Utilities Service Association.
Basically, America was developing lots of appropriate technologies before the creation of the REA. We were developing windmills, low-head dams, a lot of decentralized ways of producing electricity.
Electricity was increasingly valuable to families in America. There were lots of places way out in the middle of nowhere, and creative Americans were developing ways to supply electricity without the national grid.
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We put the REA in. Everybody could have electricity anywhere they wanted it. And we ended up with a situation where all that appropriate technology was stopped in its tracks.
Now we're coming back, years later, and saying we've under-invested in solar power; let's force-feed it. I think we might want to think, rather, about deregulating—eliminating REA and creating the decentralized incentives to decide what niche, markets, and specialized markets solar and other power sources would have.
The other question about the infant-industry argument, what would we do without federal labs? There is research on the productivity of federal R&D investments.
You are absolutely right. If we could target it intelligently, in hindsight, and avoid the public-choice problems which encourage certain facilities to be located where powerful Congressmen or Senators are located, rather than where the best scientists are located, and that we could avoid all of the keeping funding something once it's no longer profitable, and so on, if we could make politics act like the marketplace, then we would have the kind of payoff the economist you alluded to suggested.
But we don't see that. There have been a number of studies of how government R&D really pays off, and they are not very attractive.
There are two articles I mention in my testimony. One is a new piece by Terence Kealey, The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, where he details his findings on the way in which political science fails to deliver its promise; and a book by Joseph Martino, Science Funding: Politics and Porkbarrel, which also suggests that we get less than we would hope out of federally funded R&D.
I think this is a very complicated question, how we encourage basic R&D and other questions in the absence of the federal subsidy, but I think—after World War II Vedaver Bush made an incredible deal with the American people.
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After World War II, we had penicillin, we had radar, we had the nuclear bomb, it looked like federal science could produce great things, or at least powerful things.
We then sort of went into a 20-year ''Let's Do A Deal'': government will give scientists lots of money, and scientists will produce lots of great things for the American public, and we'll stay out of the nasty politics and patronage stuff.
Well for a while it worked. But I am from Louisiana, and our Senator Russell Long somewhere along the process said, wait a minute. I'm going to appropriate—vote on money and not decide how much of it comes to Louisiana?
Doesn't sound like politics as I know it.
And since then I think we have politicized science and are getting less of a payoff. It is not to say that government research is always useless; it's not. But there are many good things that ought to be diverted out of the federal budget and put elsewhere.
How to do it intelligently is the big question. You have got a lot of complicated things ahead of you.
Mr. DOYLE. Okay, Mr. Smith, I want to let some of these other people answer some questions. Obviously there is a lot of debate on both sides of that issue.
And REA, by the way, is not a federal R&D program.
Go ahead.
Ms. AURILIO. Okay. Thank you for your question, Congressman.
As far as corporate welfare, as you may know, USPIRG focuses on programs that are bad for the environment. So we are against taxpayer handouts to polluters, to corporations that encourage environmentally damaging behavior.
Mr. DOYLE. So you're not against corporate welfare across the board——
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Ms. AURILIO. Well, I was going to get into——
Mr. DOYLE. You're just against corporate welfare to those industries who have technology you don't like?
Ms. AURILIO. We actually don't have a broad-based anti-corporate welfare platform, although that may be happening in the future, but we do tend to focus on those that——
Mr. DOYLE. You are the ''green'' part of ''Green Scissors.'' This is the scissors part over here?
Ms. AURILIO. Exactly. Exactly.
Mr. DOYLE. Okay. Got it.
Ms. AURILIO. But what I did want to draw the distinction, I think I like the way Scott Sklar thinks about this as far as mature industries and incremental improvements. I want to highlight a couple of things.
One is in the Clean Coal Technology Program. Now that is a pure example of corporate welfare, I believe, because, number one, coal is definitely mature. We've been burning it for a long, long time.
Two is, it is an unnecessary handout. The Clean Air Act Amendments provide a market incentive for companies to clean up their act. And again, I am an environmentalist. I do want to see fossil energy plants clean up their act, but they already have Clean Air regulations, and Clean Air marketable permits that give them an incentive to do that, and to reward them financially if they can, if they can do it at a cheaper rate than other companies.
So there is no need for us to be spending billions of dollars to help them develop technologies. And by the way, on the Clean Coal Technology Program, GAO has done several audits of that program and has found that in some cases there were technologies being developed that were already on the marketplace, or that weren't doing the job as well as technologies that were already on the marketplace.
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So we do not see any need to subsidize an industry that is mature and already has a regulatory incentive to clean up its act. And we will fight like the devil, as you know, for stronger clean air regulations that then will provide the incentives for those industries to clean up their act.
That is corporate welfare. That is how we approach that issue. And we do not think these programs ought to be funded.
And by the way, as far as clean coal is concerned, it is an oxymoron. Any fossil energy source will release carbon dioxide. We know we have a problem with carbon dioxide emissions.
We are engaged in a very, very dangerous experiment with our atmosphere in increasing those concentrations of carbon dioxide, and there is no technology that can make you burn coal and not release carbon dioxide.
Mr. DOYLE. Well, whether you like it or not, for the foreseeable future we are not going to be running the planet on windmills and solar energy. So a lot of us that want to see a sound environment think it is prudent that we continue to learn how to use these fuels in a cleaner method.
I think these partnerships are very valuable. We just disagree totally on that.
Mr. Melissaratos, you know you are representing those big, bad, rich industries that have benefited from all of this federal involvement.
Talk about where companies like Westinghouse or other companies in the power business would be if there was never any federal R&D program, if you just went on it by yourself? Where would we be today?
How would Westinghouse be different today? Would it be better? Would it be worse? And where would we be as a country?
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And I am finished after that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MELISSARATOS. We have two large companies that are remaining that produce some of these fossil power generation hardware in this country: General Electric and Westinghouse.
We both benefit from the so-called ''corporate welfare,'' which I don't think applies to either case.
Unfortunately, Westinghouse may not exist at all. Westinghouse came pretty close to bankruptcy in 1991. And we have undergone a lot of pain, a lot of change, and we are focusing now on energy, our roots, where George Westinghouse initially started the company 111 years ago.
And after some further restructuring which is ''en vogue'' in today's markets, there will be a media company, which has taken a lot of attention over the last several years. It will be a separate company from Westinghouse Electric which will focus on clean power generation.
Unfortunately, we cover fossil power and nuclear power, and one of those isn't publicly acceptable in this country, but we are looking for help to sell that kind of technology around the globe because it is probably the most globally friendly technology that there is, if we can get the public to overcome it.
Another factor, Congressman, is the fact that American industry in general is not able to invest R&D dollars at the appropriate rates.
Our rate of investment is 1.9 percent of sales. On the $6 billion of sales that was talked about earlier, I think we made a negative $21 million worth of profits last year. So that $1.9 million that we invested in research was very, very painful.
A company like Seimens, on the other hand, invests 8 percent of sales and gets substantial subsidies from their government to compete in the global market.
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So it is those kinds of imbalances that make it difficult for so-called ''big, bad deep-pocket corporations'' to survive in today's global competitive environment.
I would venture to say that we may not exist had it not been for some of these collaborative partnerships that are allowing us to bring technology forward in the future with great promise to satisfy the objectives you all are pushing.
Mr. DOYLE. Thank you.
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Mr. Fawell.
Mr. FAWELL. Thank you, very much.
I appreciate the testimony, and I appreciate you clearing things up for us.
[Laughter.]
Mr. FAWELL. I now see the picture very clearly. What you have said is, there is a lot of common sense. There is no simple rule, I gather.
It is always intriguing for one who is on this side of the table to hear that people do not trust government, they do not trust corporations, they do not trust politicians, they do not trust lobbyists—I think their reputation ain't much better than ours——
Mr. Fred SMITH. Worse.
Mr. FAWELL. Worse. I didn't say that. But I do appreciate the testimony.
I know where each of you are coming from, and all of us in Congress are deeply aware of the need to cut spending. And yet government has its part to play, obviously.
But I must confess that I have a personal interest. I guess in the sense, Mr. Chairman, that I want to protect the record here, because I do respectfully object to the testimony that Ms. Aurilio gave to this Committee.
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I think it is misleading.
I think it is incorrect, with all due respect to her, because—here is an example:
Nuclear power isn't very popular—yet most of the world is obviously utilizing it. It produces an awful lot of electricity. It produces 50 percent of the electricity in my District, for instance, back in Illinois.
And although we know it has all kinds of problems, I think that for this Nation not to be interested in safe nuclear power, and perhaps trading our expertise with the rest of the world even if we never build another nuclear power plant, is something that we ought to think very seriously about.
But in regard to one particular program—and I know we have argued about this before, and we will argue about it continuously, I gather—I know Ms. Aurilio believes that a program at Argonne which is called ''Electrometallurigical Treatment of Spent Nuclear Fuel,'' where you bind together all the hot actonides with plutonium so there is no separation of chemicals that I know of, and you reduce the volume, and you reduce the toxicity so that the only thing that is separated is low-grade uranium which is nothing more than the ordinary fuel that goes into your regular lightwater reactors, that particular program, Electrometallurigical Treatment—is designed so that you can bind all these hot actonides together; you can shrink it; you can reduce its toxicity; and then you bury it in a glass encasement.
That is the research that is being done. We do not know if it is going to be successful, but we believe it is going to be successful.
It was something that the scientists at Argonne came across.
You know, I have to trust somebody here. We have the National Academy of Sciences—Scientists—who are monitoring this program. They tell us that it is very valuable research.
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They will blow the whistle if they feel as though it is not a valuable program, and we are relying on them.
The Department of Energy, which is no big fan of nuclear power, and indeed joined with Ms. Aurilio in killing the Integral Fast Reactor Program, which I didn't think was a smart idea because I like a reactor which will gobble up all of its waste products so there ain't no waste product, and you don't have a Yucca Mountain, and you can actually—you know, but there was fear that somebody was going to try to separate plutonium and blow somebody up, I guess, and so forth and so on, and it's dead. It's gone. That program is gone.
But in her testimony, with all due respect, she repeats this argument again and again. And her group is a part of the Kasich Coalition.
We felt so deeply about this—because the same allegations were made there—we brought Dr. Dean Eastman, Dr. Yung Chang, scientists from Argonne. Dr. Eastman is the Director.
We had representatives from the Department of Energy come. And we had Doug Raider from the National Academy of Sciences, and Ms. Wong, and we presented to John Kasich and to all of that group, for instance, the fact that this is not a pyroprocessing, or a reprocessing in order to come up with a new nuclear fuel.
And we explained what it is.
And yet, to see it all smack dab right in this record here, and the labs directors aren't going to be here, I gather, really frustrates me because—am I being led down the primrose path by the National Academy of Scientists?
And Ms. Aurilio was part of that group. She heard all of this testimony. There was nobody there aside from herself who verified her belief that we are trying to create a new nuclear fuel.
So we are talking about trust, and confidence, and what do you do if you're a Member of Congress, for instance?
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Sometimes—I guess it was some great thinker said—hardly anybody got a good idea they didn't carry it too far. And I notice, Ms. Aurilio, you said you'd fight like the devil. Well, maybe you're wrong here.
But I am going to ask of this Committee that I might, with unanimous consent, at least introduce into evidence, if I may, a statement prepared by Dr. Terry Lash, who is the Director of Nuclear Programs at the Department of Energy, setting forth basically what I tried to do in layman's terms expressed here today, a letter which he penned to me on February 13, 1997.
He also enclosed a summary of electrometallurigical treatment of Department of Energy spent fuel.
Chairman CALVERT. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. FAWELL. And I would like to have that as part of the record immediately following Ms. Aurilio's statement so that people can get the other side of it.
Mr. FAWELL. And if I may ask this one additional point, Mr. Chairman, that we do invite the National Academy of Scientists to also respond to the statements Ms. Aurilio has made, as well as Dr. Yung Chang, the head of Nuclear Research at Argonne; and indeed, if Mr. Lash has anything more to say, so that their reply to her statements—which I think are so tragically wrong—that that also be allowed.
Chairman CALVERT. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. FAWELL. And I thank you.
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Ms. AURILIO. Excuse me? Can I just ask? What do you think is incorrect, specifically, about my——
Chairman CALVERT. Please address the Chair when you——
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Ms. AURILIO. Oh, I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, I just feel like if my testimony is being called incorrect, I still didn't really understand what you think is incorrect.
Chairman CALVERT. The testimony that was given by Ms. Aurilio was duly taken. If you have comments to make to Mr. Fawell after the meeting, please do so, but we are going to continue this hearing.
Thank you.
Next, Ms. Hooley from Oregon, do you have any questions?
Ms. HOOLEY. I apologize for being late. I did have an opening statement that I would like to enter for the record, but I do not for this first panel. I do for the next panel.
Chairman CALVERT. Without objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hooley follows:]
Insert offset folios 82-83
Chairman CALVERT. Mr. Ehlers.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As has been observed earlier, we certainly have an eclectic panel here. I also appreciate the theological tone of the discussion ranging from sainthood to the Immaculate Conception.
[Laughter.]
Mr. EHLERS. This maybe is a reflection of the eclectic nature.
I have just a few questions, and I will use the Doyle rapid-fire technique.
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First of all, Mr. Smith, you pointed out the problem of having a regulatory agency doing the science. There has been proposed an NIE similar to the NIH, National Institute on the Environment, to do the scientific research for all branches of the Federal Government involved in environmental regulation or regulation relating to other environmental issues other than those handled by EPA.
Would you favor that sort of an approach to having the science done by an independent laboratory?
And before you answer, I will get around to some of the others.
In regard to Ms. Aurilio's comments, and the comments of Mr. Fawell, Mr. Chairman, this controversy has been brewing for some time. We have had a National Academy report. I was just wondering if it might be something that this Subcommittee should consider as a site visit as we—and I know you plan to visit some laboratories this year—it might be worthwhile visiting Argonne West, and perhaps Argonne East specifically to look at that, because it is not only controversial here but it becomes a Floor battle every year, and it might be good for us to have a first-hand look at that.
Chairman CALVERT. We will certainly do that.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you.
Dr. Baldwin, a question for you. I appreciate your testimony about fusion issues and separating the Tokamak issue from the issue of the ultimate reactor.
I have not seen but I have heard of a recent article critical of the ITER project, seriously questioning whether or not it will work, and so forth.
During the answer period, I would appreciate it if you would just comment on that article and what your opinion of it is.
Finally, Mr. Melissaratos, I am curious. How do you achieve 75 percent efficiency out of the solid oxide fuel cell gas turbine combination? If you would, just give me the technical aspects of how that works.
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So we will go down the line.
Mr. Fred SMITH. Thank you, Congressman.
I do not support the NIE, not because I feel that the concept of trying to relocate and reincentivize the science behind the environmental policy is not critical, but because I think the NIE might actually exacerbate the problem.
The problem is not the scientists within EPA or their brilliance or their honesty, obviously, it is the incentives of an agency.
I would like to contrast, say the FAA in its old guise, with the FDA, two organizations that both play a scientific evaluation role on a technological change.
The FAA, for example, the Federal Aviation Administration, will think about should it allow a new type of jet engine to be installed, or a fly-by-wire technology. There are potential gains; there are potential risks. They have to make an assessment of the risks that will be associated, the potential safety risks of this new technology, with the risk reduction effects of lower cost airfare, and the greater reliability of electronic systems.
They have a mission that requires them to think of the good the technology can do and the risks technology might have.
The agency has both a promotional role and a safety regulatory role, and that inherent conflict of interest which we have tried to eliminate through good government reforms, encourages them to balance risk versus risk.
The FDA, the EPA, and our more newer regulatory agencies, have been assigned a very important mission: to ensure that we have safer technologies.
But the problem is not the search for safe technologies or a clean technology, it is to search for a safe technology and a cleaner technology, and that is a balance, the risk of going to fast into the future against the risk of going too slow.
Science can help us answer that question. It can't resolve it. But I think the real problem is not whether it is an NIE or an EPA; it is a problem we have assigned agencies and said, look, only one side of the scientific ledger—and because we have done that, we have encouraged scientists to be blind, to have only one eye open, and it is that phenomena that I am trying to address.
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That is why I deliberately used the terminology of a devil's advocate, or an advocate of God, on the argument that there are always two sides to an issue, and we really should have someone arguing the pro side of science and technology even in our anti-technology agency such as EPA.
Mr. EHLERS. Dr. Baldwin?
Dr. BALDWIN. The article to which you refer really exemplifies the scientific nature of this research. This is the two young theorists who have made this calculation for the performance of ITER.
By the way, it is not a question of whether ITER would work but how well it would work; whether it would reach its full ignition condition.
If I use a metaphor of a chain of logic or a chain of calculation, they have made a contribution in the sense that they have made one link stronger than it was before. But in order to perform the full calculation they have had to do, they have had to add many of their links to make a full chain.
Those other links are not nearly so well verified, developed, and so on. And the issues they have raised are ones now which are being very much looked at as part of the ITER design and process.
I do not mean to discredit the work they did; it was very good work. But as I said, it was a small piece of a much bigger picture.
Mr. EHLERS. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Melissaratos.
Mr. MELISSARATOS. I am not sure I am technically qualified to give you a perfect response to that, sir, but the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) of all the fuel cell types being developed is the hottest. It runs at the hottest temperature.
That makes its exhaust gases suited to feed a gas turbine. You put the most advanced gas turbine in combined cycle with a fuel cell, and one's exhaust gases go back into the other one, the advanced turbines that are being developed that can have efficiencies up to 65 percent, with a fuel cell you can get an additional 10 percent in combined cycle, and that is the way we are approaching 75 percent efficiencies.
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Mr. EHLERS. If you can put one of these in every block and use the waste heat to heat and cool homes, you will have close to 100 percent?
Mr. MELISSARATOS. Yes. The fuel cell does allow itself to be distributed power. It is clean, quiet, no combustion. You have to use it in combination with a combustion machine to achieve the ultimate efficiency.
Mr. EHLERS. It is hard to gas-turbine every block, but—thank you, very much.
Mr. MELISSARATOS. We're talking about micro-turbines in the District.
[Laughter.]
Mr. EHLERS. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Ehlers.
And we thank this panel for your time this morning in answering our questions. This panel is excused, and I will introduce the second panel if you will come forward. I will introduce you as you come forward. We will be back in just 1 minute.
If everyone will please take their seats, we will go ahead with our second panel.
Our second panel will lead off with Jerry Taylor. Mr. Taylor serves as the Director of Natural Resource Studies for the Cato Institute.
Mr. Taylor.
STATEMENT OF JERRY TAYLOR, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCE STUDIES DIVISION, CATO INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC
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Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will just attempt to briefly summarize my written testimony. I would like to make three points in front of this Committee, which again I am thankful to for inviting me here to discuss these issues for government-funded R&D this morning.
First I would like to point out that, the Supreme Court not withstanding, Congress is not permitted under the Constitution to appropriate funds to further technological advances in society.
I know that I am probably wasting a few minutes by mentioning this matter, but I figure once every 10 years someone ought to tell this Committee that the Constitution does have something to say about these issues, and nothing very favorably.
Second, that the national laboratories cannot be expected to produce significant technological advances that would help our Nation's economy.
And finally, that federal energy R&D appropriations are unnecessary and counterproductive.
Actually, I would term them as they are very close to the old definition of a second marriage: the triumph of hope over experience.
First to the Constitutional questions. The Constitution is rather clear. It empowers the government ''to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to the respective writings and discoveries.''
It does not say to promote the progress of science and the useful arts ''by any means that Congress deems necessary,'' by ''giving out money;'' it is very specific, by providing for the patent power.
Now the Constitution is a document of enumerated and thus limited powers. In Federalist No. 41, Madison mocked the idea that the General Welfare Clause was somehow an open check for the Congress to go forth and do good.
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Although my written testimony summarizes much of Federalist No. 41, I will simply reference it and move on. But the question of what the Founding Fathers meant by the General Welfare Clause, or what they meant by ''scientific advancement of useful arts and scientific knowledge,'' is not something we have to speculate about.
The Constitutional Convention considered numerous amendments which would explicitly have empowered the Federal Government to do what this Committee does every year: hand out money to scientists and worthy causes.
These amendments were voted down.
For example, one such amendment said, ''To secure to literary authors their copy rights for a limited time, To establish a University, To encourage, by proper premiums and provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries.''
That was voted down by the Constitutional Convention.
Another amendment.
''To establish seminaries for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences, To grant charters of incorporation, To grant patents for useful inventions, To secure to Authors exclusive rights for a certain time, To establish public institutions, rewards and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, commerce, trades and manufactures.''
This particular amendment was likewise rejected by the Constitutional convention.
That these very powers were considered and rejected suggests that the federal power to create, guarantee, promote, or limit economic rights was intentionally granted only in a very narrow form, that of the grant of limited term exclusive rights to writers and inventors.
Now of course the standard reply would be: If the Supreme Court lets us do it, then doesn't that settle the matter?
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Well, it might settle it politically, but after all, each one of you did take an Oath of Office to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. If the Supreme Court does not want to fulfill its obligations, I do not think that necessarily allows you ''carte blanche'' to ignore yours.
Now on to the more specific matters of our hearing.
The National Laboratories? To hear that the national laboratories are wonderful cornucopias of technology is to live essentially 20 feet under the ground.
More than 50 recent audits of the national laboratory complex have found rampant mismanagement, inadequate financial and cost controls, excessive legal fees, and fraudulent practices.
My testimony documents, or cites numerous studies of that nature. They are all of the same nature. They are all rather hostile. They have all been rather uniformly negative, and they have all been uniformly ignored by Congress.
Perhaps the most compelling recent analysis of the national labs is the February 1995 Galvin Report, the product of a Corporate/Academic Task Force appointed by the Secretary of Energy.
It is a wonderful document, and its main finding is as follows:
''The principal organizational recommendation of this Task Force is that the laboratories be as close to corporatized as is imaginable. We are convinced that simply fine tuning a policy or a mission, a project, or certain administrative functions will produce minimal benefits at best.''
Of course the Galvin Report's recommendation on that particular regard was ignored by the Department of Energy, which helped pay for the study, and ignored by Congress last year, which isn't particularly surprising since 49 other studies have concluded essentially the same thing and have likewise been ignored.
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Moving on to the Department of Energy's Research and Development Projects in general: Over the past 4 decades the Federal Government has poured $17 billion into general, nondefense nuclear science, and $63 billion into general energy research and development, 70 percent of which since the mid-1980's were devoted to applied energy R&D.
It is my observation that astronomers spend a great deal of time trying to document the existence of black holes. We know in theory they are out there, but we have not been able to find one with any conclusive proof.
I would recommend that the astronomers point their telescopes to the Department of Energy's R&D budget because that is quite truly a black hole.
The rationale of course for these budgets we have heard this morning from the first panel, and you have heard them time and time again, to quote Dr. Maxine Savitz:
''Priority for federal funding of R&D has been given to projects where the risks are so great (but potential awards are so great), the time for commercialization is so long, or potential returns based on present energy prices are so low that private investment alone cannot rationally be expected to be adequate.''
Former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary likewise suggests that DOE spends money on technologies ''that are so high-risk and so expensive that no one company's board of directors will agree to invest in it.''
You know this rationale is offered so often that sometimes I think that the more lunatic the idea and the more expensive it is, the more it fits into DOE's profile and the more we are going to hear crowing about it.
The bottom line is, it is very high risk, of course. The payoffs are very uncertain, of course. But if a company will not risk its stockholders' money, if a private investor won't risk his own money, then why does the Federal Congress think that it is okay for the taxpayers to be milked, particularly when we are $6 trillion in debt, we have an annual deficit that is going to extend as far as the eye can see, not withstanding our promises to diet some day in the future, and the American taxpayer is already rather hard-pressed.
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If it is too risky, too expensive, and too uncertain for people to privately invest their own money, let me suggest to you the taxpayers do not volunteer to become this milk cow.
Now Congressman Doyle mentioned earlier a survey of 1,500 economists and they were asked of course how best to fine-tune the economy, and could we theoretically get economic growth moving beyond what we currently have it, and the argument was, well half of them said, sure, government can help that process along by R&D expenditure.
The Congressman quite rightly asked: Well, why might that be?
Largely I think it is because economists are very realistic about market failure, but they live in a dream world about government failure.
Theoretically, I would gather, if you would ask those economists they would say: Well, government probably would not do very well unless I was in charge and picking the programs.
Seven hundred and fifty scientists probably think they do a rather good job at it, but government failure is a problem, as well.
We tend to focus on market failure, but what about government failure?
First of all, we hear that markets have short-term time horizons. The last witness on the panel from Westinghouse mentioned that the time horizons for Westinghouse are just so short that they would never invest in the long term. They don't have the money, and we don't have the foresight, and we would go bankrupt if someone weren't giving us the money to invest.
Well let me suggest to you that historically the time horizons of the Federal Government are a little bit less than the time horizons of the private sector. After all, for the most part time horizons in Congress tend to be from election cycle to election cycle, and the fact that time horizons aren't rather long is also evinced by a $6 trillion debt left on our children.
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No one is particularly worrying about it, although I will guarantee you that corporations worry about long-term debt.
So I am not so sure that government, one, has any better comparative advantage in looking at the long-term. And if you want any evidence of that, I guess we can point to the Superconducting Super Collider, synfuels, and everything else this government has indulged in and seen go kaput.
Secondly, there is a question between who should be making these decisions about where the dollars go. Economic actors who are interested in profits, of course they want to make the best investments possible; or political actors who, after all, have incentives to consume themselves with the political manifestations of how money is being spent.
Eric Reichl, a former Director for the Synthetic Fuel Corporation and a long-time member of the Department of Energy's Energy Research Advisory Board, says this:
''. . . we have lots of ideas. The problem is how to select the right ones to pursue. If we have many ideas their relative merit will vary from high merit to extremely marginal. It also follows that the more R&D dollars are available the more of them will go to some marginal ones. The high merit ideas will always find support, even from—or particularly from—private industry. In general then government R&D dollars will tend to flow to marginal ideas. Exceptions always exist, but they are just that, exceptions.''
Now from someone who used to run R&D programs, I find that a fairly startling admission. But then again, these are not matters of just simple high-theory government failure versus market failure.
There have been academic analyses of government R&D programs, particularly in the energy arena, that seldom get mentioned in front of committees like this, but I would like to spend just a few seconds before I wrap this up to note:
For example, the Brookings Institute, no apologists for the private sector, or no savage critic of government as a general matter, published a book sometime ago by economist Linda Cohen of the University of California at Irvine, and Roger Noll of Stanford University, called The Technology Pork Barrel, and they found that energy R&D has been an abject failure.
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They say: ''the overriding lesson from the case studies is that the goal of economic efficiency—to cure market failures in privately sponsored commercial innovation—is so severely constrained by political forces that an effective, coherent national commercial R&D program has never been put into place.''
Or, the MIT's book on Energy Policy written by Thomas Lee, Ben Balls, and Richard Tabors, observed ''the experience of the 1970's and 1980's taught us that if a technology is commercially viable, then government support is not needed; and if a technology is not commercially viable, no amount of government support will make it so [emphasis in original].''
Just to wrap up for a moment, another comment made on the previous panel, the assertion was made——
Chairman CALVERT. If we could wrap up, Mr. Taylor, I think just as we have been overly generous on R&D, I think I have been overly generous on time. So if we could——
Mr. TAYLOR. I will wrap it up with this. The assertion was made that no significant technological advance has been seen in the recent years unless it has been forwarded by federal dollars—the implication being that federal dollars are responsible for all the good things in technological life.
This, to paraphrase Jeremy Bentham, is not simply nonsense; it is nonsense on stilts. The Federal Government did not get into the R&D business until after World War II. But before World War II, mirabile dictum, technological advances occurred without any government money.
Telephones were invented.
Airplanes were invented.
Cars were invented.
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How could this possibly have been, since no government money was there?
What we are finding is the government puts out such a fine mist of dollars in any technological arena that possibly can come up here for a handout, that anything positive that happens is now attributed to that handout.
But again, academic analyses of these programs, GAO audits of these programs have found that claims of the government was responsible for the advance are almost always duplicitous or incorrect, or in error, or somehow not at all substantiated.
I will leave it at that, and thank the Committee for indulging me for a few moments to vent my spleen, as it were.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor follows:]
Insert offset folios 84-114
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. We appreciate that.
Mr. Leavitt is President of the Weather Service's Association and is here representing the Commercial Weather Services Corporation.
Michael Leavitt.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL S. LEAVITT, PRESIDENT, WEATHER SERVICES CORPORATION, LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ON BEHALF OF THE COMMERCIAL WEATHER SERVICES ASSOCIATION, ALEXANDRIA, VA
Mr. LEAVITT. Thank you, Chairman Calvert, and members of the Subcommittee.
Today I am representing the views of the Commercial Weather Services Association (CWSA), the national trade association for the private weather industry.
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Many policymakers are not aware of the already large role played by the private weather industry. Private meteorologists provide the public upwards of 85 percent of its weather forecasts through television weathercasts, in newspaper weather maps, on the radio and over the Internet.
Because of this significant and ever increasing role of the private sector, major budget savings for the government can be realized if Congress makes some needed legislative changes in the National Weather Service's legal mandate.
The proper changes will allow the National Weather Service to put greater emphasis on fulfilling its core missions of collecting and archiving raw weather data and providing severe weather warnings.
Over the past 10 years, the consensus reform recommendations has been that the National Weather Service needs to focus on this core mission.
Unfortunately, at the same time that these recommendations were being made, Congress has moved the National Weather Service in a different direction by requiring the NWS to provide specialized services which benefit narrow constituencies, and by establishing roadblocks to prevent necessary and planned consolidation of offices under the Weather Service modernization process.
Let me summarize seven major areas in my written testimony:
First, revise the Organic Act of the National Weather Service.
Congress must first modify the 1890 statute regarding government's role in providing weather services. This 1890 law, enacted before the advent of modern technology and before the creation of a private weather industry, allows for government to function in competition with private companies, and does not reflect the modern reality of a viable and expanding commercial weather industry serving business and the public, and widespread policies throughout the government prohibiting government commercial with the private sector.
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This statute, called the Organic Act, has not been substantially changed since it was passed 107 years ago.
The Organic Act's general statement of government's role has been used by some to justify a virtual unlimited federal role in weather information services, thus allowing taxpayer-supported free government services to circulate in the marketplace where private industry can provide equal or better service with the costs borne by the special commercial interests needing these services.
The Organic Act today contains no core mission for the National Weather Service, so the government's role can be constantly expanded into new services at the expense of more important functions such as collecting data and issuing warnings for life-threatening storms.
The National Weather Service took a major step towards defining the roles of the private sector and the government when it issued the 1990 ''Policy Statement on the Role of the Private Weather Industry and the National Weather Service.''
This policy document states: ''The National Weather Service will not compete with the private sector when a service is currently provided by commercial enterprises, unless otherwise directed by applicable law.''
Shortly after publication of this policy statement, the National Weather Service employee's union testified before Congress that the Policy Statement is in violation of the 1890 Organic Act.
In addition, when CWSA sought to address a number of instances of government commercial against private firms occurring since the issuance of the Policy Statement, the National Weather Service itself referred to the Organic Act when declining to discontinue the commercial.
Clearly this Policy Statement is not sufficient to effectively define the role of the National Weather Service.
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The spirit of the 1990 Policy Statement should be written into law, replacing the outdated 1890 statute. That is, the National Weather Service should be given a specific legal mandate to collect, archive, and disseminate worldwide weather data and information, provide public weather warnings, and advisories as public services.
The last Congress was supportive of these amendments to the Organic Act. In fact, revised Organic Act language was passed by the House in the 104th Congress as part of the 1996 NOAA Authorization Bill.
This exact language should be applied to the 1997 NOAA Authorization Bill.
Secondly, eliminate specialized weather services from the budget.
Specialized services provided by the National Weather Service have been an area which the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton Administrations have all agreed should be eliminated.
A large private-sector capability exists which already provides these services directly to users at no cost to the taxpayer. There is no reason why the Federal Government needs to provide specialized forecasts to business, the media, and special interests.
Private sector entrepreneurs are ready and willing to absorb all demand for these types of services, thus allowing the National Weather Service to focus on its core mission of collecting data and providing warnings which benefit the general public.
Thirdly, expedite implementation of Public Law 100–685.
The Weather Service Modernization Plan calls for a change from 334 offices to 118 larger offices, once new technology and equipment is in place.
The speed with which the consolidation of field offices has taken place has been slow, at best, because of roadblocks constructed over the past few years by Congress at the request of special interests.
The committee that approves field office closings has been in place for 4 years. However, only in the last year or so have they been able to effectively close offices.
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Of the 84 office closings proposed by the National Weather Service, the committee unanimously recommended closing 83 out of 84 offices. This is certainly a step in the right direction.
However, the process is still laborious and time-consuming. Policies should be written that will expedite the field office closures because the longer they stay open, the more costly it will be to close them in the future.
Fourth, consolidate the National Weather Service organizational structure. A study completed by Booz Allen recommended that the overlapping structures of the National Weather Service be consolidated and similar functions grouped together, ''thus targeting resources on the core mission and permit economies of scale.''
Savings of over $50 million per year could be achieved by implementation of these recommendations.
Fifth, prohibit the National Weather Service from creating or subsidizing competition from universities.
The National Weather Service has made arrangements with various universities where they are provided free data in exchange for research or other projects.
Some of this research money goes to projects which support forecasting systems directly competing with private firms.
In addition to federal funding from the National Weather Service, universities also have other unfair competitive advantages such as not having to pay taxes, getting free raw materials, having all of their overhead expenses subsidized, using student labor at less than industry or minimum wages, and not having the future viability of their operations being dependent on their ability to achieve a profit.
This makes it difficult for private companies to effectively compete—the results being lost clients, lost revenue, lost private-sector jobs, lost tax dollars, and indirect government supported competition for private industry.
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Let me close by saying that the National Weather Service should shift its funding allocation to its core mission. Instead of blanket funding a vast array of services that the Weather Service now provides, they should focus all of their funding on services which fall into their core mission.
The National Weather Service should concentrate on providing these services which include data collection, generation of a sophisticated suite of computer guidance models, and implementation of the latest forecast technology through the modernized field offices to generate general public forecasts and emergency warnings of severe weather.
To achieve this goal, the National Weather Service should have or be allocated sufficient funding in each cycle.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Leavitt follows:]
Insert offset folios 115-124
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Next, Mr. David Smith is Secretary-Treasurer of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, and is a working meteorologist with the New Orleans Forecast Office.
STATEMENT OF DAVID R. SMITH, SECRETARY-TREASURER, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EMPLOYEES ORGANIZATION, WASHINGTON, DC; AND METEOROLOGIST, NEW ORLEANS FORECAST OFFICE
Mr. DAVID R. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate the opportunity to convey the sentiments of the members of the National Weather Service Employees Organization concerning the Fiscal Year 1998 budget authority and related issues.
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I want to step away from economic theory and political philosophy and focus the Committee's attention on the next 18 months' budget.
I must report that a consensus of meteorologists and hydrologists and technicians employed at the Weather Service is that the Administration's Fiscal Year 1998 request is wholly inadequate if we are expected to issue timely and accurate forecasts and warnings of severe weather.
We are at a loss to understand why the Administration has proposed funding reductions in Weather Service operations for a second year in a row.
The Administration's Fiscal Year 1998 request for local warnings and forecasts is a reduction from the Fiscal Year 1998 funding which was a reduction from the previous year.
In addition, during the past 2 years, the Weather Service has had to absorb a 5 percent increase in cost due to mandatory pay raises and inflation. We consider this to be a surface change that will not be a realizable savings for the American public.
Congress has already authorized and appropriated over $4 billion to modernize the Weather Service. We now have a state-of-the-art technology.
What the Weather Service no longer has is the money to employ and train its staff to operate that equipment.
As we all know, the press has focused its attention on the impact of this year's Weather Service reduction-in-force caused by the shortfall in the Fiscal Year 1997 budget.
As an operational hydrologist, I know that the cuts which soon will be made, absent an emergency supplemental appropriation, will seriously reduce our ability to predict floods such as those now occurring in the Midwest.
Specifically, reducing personnel at the Storm Prediction Center and reducing the Marine Center's Ocean Analyses Frequency will adversely affect the accuracy of the Nation's precipitation forecasts which are vital to predicting the increased river flow.
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The Administration's Fiscal Year 1998 request has not restored $10.5 million which Congress cut from the Administration's Fiscal Year 1997 request based upon a flawed audit conducted by the Department of Commerce's Inspector General (IG).
Last December, staff members of the IG's office revealed irregularities in that audit, and that its conclusions were politically motivated.
In a letter to the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce, the OIG staff wrote, and I quote: ''I have watched over the past several years our office launch time after time a search and destroy mission on the National Weather Service and Dr. Friday. Mr. DeGeorge has made it a personal thing with Dr. Friday, and the integrity of our office has suffered. He has said a number of times 'if the Department can't manage itself, then he would manage it for them.' This attitude has led to an attempt to dismantle the National Weather Service at any cost.''
Regrettably, many of the positions which are being eliminated because of the funding reductions based on that particular IG report are operational personnel.
The unobtainable savings from the IG's discredited audit should be restored to the Agency's budget.
In deference to Mr. Leavitt's comments, we urge the Committee to reject any further efforts to privatize weather services.
We also urge that the National Weather Service's Agricultural Warning Programs privatized last year be reauthorized. Privatization of weather service has already proven to be a very misguided attempt at reinventing government.
In January, Florida suffered $300 million in crop losses during an unexpected freeze. Had the Agricultural Programs not been eliminated, the growers in Florida would have received a warning of the freeze in sufficient time to save their crops.
Florida farmers sustained economic losses that were 100 times greater than the Weather Service's savings.
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American farmers, foresters, mariners, sporting enthusiasts, as well as the general public, are now paying private companies for weather forecasts that they have received free from the Weather Service for over 100 years.
I fail to see that there is a lack of presence of—I'm sorry—that there is an unfair competition in existence. If private forecast vendors want fair competition, then they ought to launch their own satellites, build their own radar network, and invest in Super Computers to analyze the data. Until that time, America should not have to buy back its own weather information from a small number of companies who could not exist without the continuing investment of the Weather Service made by the taxpayer.
I would like to make a brief comment on the plans to close the Weather Service's Southern Region Headquarters in Ft. Worth, Texas.
The day-to-day operational support provided by this regional office is essential. Plans to close that office are ill-advised, and we recommend that Congress reject that proposal.
One last item: April 4th marked the 20th anniversary of the crash of Southern Airways Flight #242 in Georgia. This tragedy resulted because the pilots did not have updated weather information and flew into a thunder storm.
That deadly deficiency led to a creation of the weather support units at FAA's Air Traffic Control Centers staffed by Weather Service meteorologists.
The FAA has now taken a giant step backward and is testing a plan at the Houston Air Traffic Control Center that will replace professional Weather Service meteorologists with FAA technicians.
This experiment is being conducted as the relatives of those who perished in Flight 242 are holding a painful reunion. We urge Congress to halt this experiment.
Thank you very much. I would be pleased to answer any questions you might have.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. David Smith follows:]
Insert offset folios 125-131
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Next is Christopher ''Dee-Eelya?''
Dr. D'ELIA. ''Eee-lee-ia.''
Chairman CALVERT. Okay. Elia, is President-Elect of the National Sea Grant Association. He is also Director of the Maryland Sea Grant College Program located at the University of Maryland.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER D'ELIA, PRESIDENT-ELECT, SEA GRANT ASSOCIATION; AND DIRECTOR, MARYLAND SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK, MD
Mr. D'ELIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee.
I am very pleased to be here to testify today in behalf of the reauthorization of the National Sea Grant College Program.
Sea Grant is unique and a valuable resource for this country. Sea Grant conducts high-quality merit-reviewed scientific research.
This research addresses significant problems and develops new opportunities in the management and long-term use of our Nation's publicly owned marine, coastal, and Great Lakes resources.
Sea Grant is a partnership, a partnership of federal and state governments, universities, and the private sector.
The program integrates its principal components of research, education, technology transfer, and advisory service to the benefit of the entire Nation. It takes pride in having a very strong record of service that provides economic returns to the taxpayer far in excess of its cost.
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We have consistently been able to draw upon our research capabilities to save tax dollars by arriving at cost-effective, nonregulatory solutions to public resource problems that meet important environmental and other public policy objectives.
At the same time, we have protected the interest of the private sector.
Our program has been shown in studies to have a very high value, returning far more than its annual appropriation in cost savings and increased economic growth.
Sea Grant supports literally hundreds of projects in our Nation's leading universities, colleges, and research institutions.
I cannot do the program adequate justice and review all of it here, but I will try to illustrate the value by giving you some examples.
For example, Sea Grant has developed an input/output model of toxins in Green Bay, Wisconsin that is estimated to have saved state and federal taxpayers over $430 million in unnecessary mitigation efforts.
Sea Grant has demonstrated that environmental standards could be met without the need for a new $1.5 billion sewage treatment center in Orange County, California.
Sea Grant has developed the life-saving protocols for cold-water near-shore drowning that are now part of the standard EMT training by the American Red Cross, and they save hundreds of lives each year.
Sea Grant has discovered promising new pharmaceuticals from the marine environment to treat inflammation, immune deficiency diseases and tumors, and I am pleased to say that the Director of the California program sits next to me who is a national leader in this area and has been doing this since before it was popular to talk about marine biotechnology.
Many members of the Committee know that Sea Grant has also been at the forefront of a national effort to address the problem of aquatic nuisance species such as the zebra mussel that infests the Great Lakes and other U.S. waters.
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These unwanted species invade the native ecosystem and proliferate in the absence of natural predators. These nuisance species are a problem to every one of our coasts and they can include species that are fish, shellfish, vegetation, and even microbes.
They displace beneficial indigenous organisms, serve as disease vectors, or in the case zebra mussels constitute a public menace by overgrowing structures and clogging intake pipes.
Our strategy is to learn more about these species, continue research and outreach efforts to further prevent their spread, and to conduct research and outreach efforts that will significantly reduce the introduction of additional nuisance species into U.S. waters.
Sea Grant has also undertaken very important research to understand devastating diseases of oysters such as MSX and dermo that have affected populations on the East Coast, but we certainly have problems with West Coast oysters and oysters in the Gulf Coast as well.
Diseases have contributed to catastrophic loss of oysters from the Chesapeake Bay, for example, close to my home. Scarcely a generation ago, the Chesapeake Bay was the Nation's premiere oyster resource.
When these populations were healthy and abundant, they helped to cleanse the Bay by filtering the entire volume in less than a week. Now, they are largely gone and that internal cleansing mechanism no longer exists.
Well, the loss of this important resource has not only destroyed the regional industry—which has got a very unique culture associated with it—but it is also contributing to the environmental degradation we see in the coastal waters where oysters once thrived.
Well, I am pleased to say that our program is making real great strides in understanding these diseases, their pathology, their epidemiology, and we are developing new tools such as molecular probes to identify infected organisms.
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The total annual federal appropriation for Sea Grant is about $54 million, and it only represents about half of the total operating budget of the program.
Sea Grant leverages its federal funding with matching contributions from its host universities, state and local governments and the private sector.
Most importantly, though, it enables the Federal Government to access the best minds in the Nation to cope with important public resource challenges.
Except for our special purpose funding appropriated by Congress in areas such as marine biotechnology, oyster disease, and aquatic nuisance species, Sea Grant's core program funding has remained essentially flat for more than a decade.
We are concerned, therefore, that the Administration has not requested the full amount that Congress has appropriated, and we think that approach does not support the Administration's goal of promoting healthy ecosystems, coastal ecosystems, rebuilding the Nation's fisheries, and helping to recover protected species.
Any objective evaluation of Sea Grant does not warrant such a cut, and we urge Congress to restore it.
The Sea Grant Association strongly supports H.R. 437 to reauthorize the National Sea Grant College Program. We are grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, and your Subcommittee for your very strong support for this legislation.
The only recommendation we have as a change for H.R. 437 is that you consider extending the period of authorization to 5 years.
We look forward to the early enactment of this reauthorization, and we pledge our full cooperation to you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. D'Elia follows:]
Insert offset folios 132-141
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Chairman CALVERT. Thank you for your testimony.
Last, we have Dr. James J. Sullivan who is Director of the California Sea Grant College System administered by the University of California in the beautiful City of La Jolla.
STATEMENT OF JAMES J. SULLIVAN, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA SEA GRANT COLLEGE SYSTEM, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LA JOLLA, CA
Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, for inviting me to testify before you today.
The program that I direct has the distinction of both being the largest Sea Grant program in the Nation, and the network's strongest research program.
To be sure, California's Sea Grant stature reflects the fact that it represents the most populous State in the union with over 32 million people.
But it also reflects the fact that our program is able to draw on the world-class scientific talent of not only the University of California campuses, but also those of the California State University System, and such premier private institutions as Stanford, the University of Southern California, and the California Institute of Technology.
The messages I want to leave with you today are straightforward:
First, I wish to emphasize the important contribution of fundamental, university-based research in addressing our Nation's coastal and marine resource issues.
Second, I want to illustrate how such basic Sea Grant science has paid off for California and the Nation.
And third, I want to urge you to support full reauthorization of the National Sea Grant College Program.
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As you know, Sea Grant is uniquely effective because it embraces the three interlinked components of research, education, and extension.
Each of these elements undeniably makes an essential contribution to the whole. And yet, I would argue that high-quality research is the bedrock of the program from which the other components derive their strength and substance.
Here are just four examples of how California Sea Grant's investment in fundamental research has had important payoffs:
Endocrinology, biotechnology, and genetics' research on the reproduction, growth, and development of abalone and sturgeon was critical to the creation of California's mariculture industry. Today, these Sea Grant scientists are exploring the use of endocrinology and biotechnology to enhance these animals' growth, and they are investigating the disease agents and pests that can afflict these and other farmed marine animals.
Ecological and hydrological research first established that West Coast wetlands are significantly different from their East and Gulf Coast counterparts, and has continued to lead the way in developing the importance of a scientific basis for management.
Physical oceanographic and engineering research on waves, currents, and the movement of sand led directly to a wave-measurement network that is one of the largest in the Nation. Building on this work, Sea Grant scientists have developed sophisticated computer models that allow better, more cost-effective prediction of coastal erosion and storm damage from waves.
Marine chemistry and pharmacology research supported the first organized attempt in the United States to identify new drug candidates from marine organisms.
Through this seminal and productive work, California's program is working to ensure that both our Nation and our State retain leadership positions in marine biotechnology.
As an aside at this point, Dr. D'Elia was very instrumental in seeing that an initiative before Congress did provide some funding for biotechnology, and we are delighted to sort of co-lead that with him.
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Mr. Chairman, California's intellectual and natural resources are key to the State's dynamic economic engine. An economic analysis prepared by the California Research Bureau has showed that seven ocean-dependent industries contributed over $17 billion to the State's economy in 1992--about the same as that from agriculture.
Of that $17 billion, about $10 billion resulted from coastal tourism and recreation. These findings underscore the critical importance of having a sound scientific basis for managing our ocean resources in a sustainable manner in order to provide long-term economic as well as environmental benefits to the State.
It is because I am so optimistic about the role that fundamental university research can continue to play in addressing our Nation's many marine and coastal issues now and in the future that I strongly support H.R. 437 to reauthorize the National Sea Grant College Program.
If I may, I would like to leave our latest Biennial Scientific and Technical Report with you as an addendum.
I would be more than pleased to answer any questions that you or other members have, or provide any additional information.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:]
Insert offset folios 142-149
Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.
Right now I wish we had spent more money on R&D on allergies.
[Laughter.]
Chairman CALVERT. Mr. Taylor, I'm obviously very familiar with the CATO Institute, and I've agreed with and worked with you on many issues.
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One thing, just for a point of clarification, when we talk about the elimination of all federal energy R&D, much of the research and development that is energy related, obviously is defense related also.
You would not propose that, for instance, in World War II, that we should not have went ahead and developed the atomic bomb, and to ensure that we won the war, or, secondly, that we didn't go forward with the development of the hydrogen bomb to make sure that we maintained a competitive edge over, at that point, the Soviet Union, or continued the defense sometimes which were energy related to make sure that we maintained our peace and security in the world.
I don't think you meant that, did you, Mr. Taylor?
Mr. TAYLOR. No, Mr. Chairman, I did not. Obviously, the necessary and proper clause gives Congress the power to expend R&D—to undertake R&D activities in national defense.
Chairman CALVERT. It's also true that much of the research and development money that is spent in our common defense is also related to energy R&D. There are some spinoffs that have occurred because of the defense industry, which we have all prospered by, the NET, the computer NET system that is prominent in the world today, certain nuclear power, whether you like it or not.
Certainly we've had every opinion here on both panels today, and no one can accuse us of not being impartial.
But there is research that is necessary and that benefits all of us. For instance, would you be opposed to eliminating such programs as the Human Genome Project, which is being partially funded by the Department of Energy, and certainly the National Institutes of Health?
Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, I would. If the private sector wants to invest in such things, if universities want to indulge in those activities, if scientists at Harvard or Yale or Princeton want to spend their academic time, I have no objection to it.
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But the government is constrained to protecting the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Chairman CALVERT. Just to interrupt, because I have a limited amount of time. I'm not going to pull what my friend, Mr. Doyle, does.
[Laughter.]
Chairman CALVERT. You are then opposed to government spending money to come up with a breakthrough for cancer or for AIDS or for preventing and curing other types of diseases?
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the more worth the cause, the more certain the private funding. Pharmaceutical companies are pouring money into investigation of cancer and AIDS and elsewhere, largely because the breakthrough will guarantee the dollar.
It seems to me that the only intellectual reason for government R&D is that somehow private dollars won't flow. The only reason private dollars generally don't flow to a project is because everyone in the know, in the banking community or in that particular industry considers it a bad risk.
Chairman CALVERT. Well, there are many things I agree with the CATO Institute on. This is one of the things I don't agree on.
I think that there are some things that government must do and propel research into things that work for the benefit of most Americans.
Mr. Leavitt, you have been here, certainly. I am from an agricultural area and an area that is one of the largest citrus production areas in the world.
So I'm very interested in weather forecasts. Obviously, in order to sell that forecasting that you sell, you must have the basic research.
You depend upon the National Weather Service to supply that type of production for you. So, is your comment that you are merely distributing something that already the National Weather Service produces?
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And pays for, by the way? How do you respond? That would be a criticism that some people would make.
Mr. LEAVITT. Actually what we are doing is taking information which the National Weather Service collects and we're refining for the specific requirements of the end user.
Two citrus growers in adjacent counties may have different requirements for it, and a citrus grower versus a soybean grower or another type of food grower.
Chairman CALVERT. But you do agree that the National Weather Service then should provide the basic data that you use in order to make those predictions?
Mr. LEAVITT. Absolutely.
Chairman CALVERT. So would you be continually supporting, for instance, what's going on with weather monitoring for the El Nino effect in the Pacific Ocean in order to make those types of predictions, the supercomputers that are necessary, the type of equipment necessary?
Are you in favor of those types of appropriations?
Mr. LEAVITT. Yes.
We support the large-scale research that the government and university community is currently engaged in.
Chairman CALVERT. Do you believe the United States Government should expand that type of research—I'm asking your opinion—in order to accommodate and to ensure that type of information is available to be shared with organizations that you represent?
Mr. LEAVITT. The current level of research funding should be maintained at its existing levels.
Chairman CALVERT. I'm out of time. Thank you, Mr. Leavitt.
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Mr. Doyle?
Mr. DOYLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to continue with that same rapid question strategy. I have some comments and questions and then you guys can go to town after I'm done.
Mr. Taylor, I appreciate your reminding us of our duty to uphold the Constitution, and that we all took an oath to do that. We get reminded of that frequently from many individuals.
I guess the problems we run into sometimes, since that document was written a couple of hundred years ago and we don't have the benefit of asking the founding fathers what they meant all the time, as we read it. Now, perhaps they appear to you at the CATO Institute and tell you what they meant.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DOYLE. Those of here sometimes are subject to interpretation. So I guess sometimes we may have a disagreement on what we're being sworn to uphold.
I read your testimony last night, and I note that you alluded to the DOE report success stories and then the subsequent GAO report that debunks some of the success stories. We had both of—we dealt with that issue last year here in the Science Committee.
I think it's fair to say that the Committee found fault with both of those reports, both DOE's report and the GAO report. But one thing that they appeared to both agree upon is that the savings in energy efficiency R&D funding resulted in about $11 billion in savings to consumers, and that the amount of money we expended over the entire lifetime of that program was approximately $8 billion.
And they were in agreement on that point, that actually we had—it was a good deal for the Federal Government and for consumers, that we spent $8 billion, that we saved consumers about $11 billion. I'll let you answer that in a second.
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Then I would say to Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Smith that I have a letter here from basically 20–25 some individuals, all presidents of the American Meteorological Society, expressing very grave concern over some of the significant cuts in the budget and what that is going to result in in terms of protecting the public in light of some of the disasters we had.
I wonder if you could both take some time to comment on these cuts, and what you think the impacts will be.
And if you think the impacts aren't going to be dangerous to the general health, what you see as alternatives to that.
Finally, Mr. Taylor, I know the CATO Institute advocates abolishing all kinds of different agencies. One that I read about you advocate abolishing FEMA, too. I'm just curious about what your rationale would be for abolishing FEMA and what would take its place in the private sector.
With that—and I'm not a coastal guy, so I don't really have a lot of questions for you two, but I'm sure the Chairman will take care of that. Go to town now.
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, I'll try to handle questions 1 and 3 and leave it to the rest of the panel to answer the others.
On energy conservation, in particular, GAO and DOE might agree to that number, but the Federal Government issues an annual report through CBO in which they report on the cost of energy conservation programs.
Their most recent report indicated that the cost of a kilowatt of energy saved through energy conservation programs at the federal or state level is about 5.5 to 6.0 cents per kilowatt per cost of unit of energy saved.
The spot price of electricity today is about 2.5 cents per kilowatt. If you look at energy conservation as a source of energy, as a lot of energy conservation analysts do—they call it megawatts—then it stands to reason that by analysis, megawatts for energy conservation is two to three times more expensive than simply generating power in the first place.
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It might well be that there are some savings involved, but they're more expensive than otherwise they should be. I don't think those have been very effective programs.
The academic literature on energy conservation programs, either at DOE or at the state level as well, is absolutely uniform on this matter. There are literally dozens and dozens of analyses which have blown holes in the cost savings proposed by both state public utility commissions, utility companies, and the Department of Energy in this area.
As far as the founding fathers visiting us, that's something that I understand Hillary Clinton and Nancy Reagan have an exclusive purview on. We haven't met any recently.
But as far as the FEMA matter is concerned, it's not my particular area of study at the CATO Institute, but I would suggest to you that a great deal of what FEMA does is baling out people who have no business undertaking economic activities in the places they do.
For example, if people want to build houses or businesses in flood plains, I guess if it's their money and they want to make that investment, that's fine, but why every taxpayer in the United States ought to pay for taking care of damages once they do that sort of thing, is a mystery to me.
It's called in economics, a moral hazard problem. If someone is going to go ahead and take care of the damages from your own activities, then you're simply going to keep subsidizing more and more irresponsible behavior like that. I gather a lot of that would be in FEMA.
Mr. DOYLE. What about other acts of God? People shouldn't live in LA either. We should just get everybody off that fault line.
Mr. TAYLOR. For example, that's what insurance markets are for. People can privately decide to insure themselves or not. Acts of God like a pestilence or a drought or something in the Midwest, if the Federal Government pays for agricultural crop insurance and the farmer doesn't have to, except through a much discounted tax rate, then obviously the Federal Government is displacing what private industry would have done.
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You can buy earthquake insurance in California if you like. But we talk about these sorts of things, but let's bring it back to the energy arena.
We have that sort of program for the Price-Anderson Act which tells nuclear power companies, any damage done in an accident above a certain figure, they don't have to worry about it, the government will insure that. You only have to have insurance up to a certain damage figure.
Now, it seems to me that this—if you're going to provide for these sorts of disaster relief programs, they end up metastasizing all throughout government. They might be perhaps subsidizing things you're not too excited about.
Maybe you don't mind shore land development. If you're from a coastal area, most Congressmen love that. But a lot of people don't particularly care for subsidized nuclear power.
If nuclear power were to buy its own insurance for disasters like that, and they found that the private sector priced too high for it, well, maybe nuclear power isn't as safe as industry is telling us, if the experts won't take the insurance coverage, except for an astronomically high premium. And if they wouldn't, then why should the taxpayer be on the knob for it?
Mr. LEAVITT. The letter to Secretary Daley was signed by a number of eminent individuals in the meteorological community. We concur with their recommendations, which really are to restore funding and to provide full funding for key areas of the National Weather Service which fall under what we refer to as the core mission.
These include some of the specific items they listed such as maintenance of equipment and the Weather Service's ability to warn of severe weather and flood hazards. We're encouraging the Committee to direct the Weather Service to move its funding into those areas that are part of the core mission.
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And areas that are not part of the core mission can certainly be handled by private industry, and are being handled by private industry today, which should leave sufficient funding for them to address the matters that were pointed out in this letter.
Mr. DAVID SMITH. I agree with Mr. Leavitt in all points he made there. Specifically, I have before me, a list of what exactly would be removed or reduced.
Going over the list as briefly as I can, there's the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center is going to reduce the number of map analyses in the Pacific. We really need those analyses to keep track of the weather that's coming in from the Pacific.
They were going to reduce it from 4 times a day to 2 times a day. They were going to reduce the number of North American surface analysis. These are the maps that you see on TV with the frontal systems on them, reduce them from 8 times a day to 6 times a day.
And then eliminate the manual oversight of the quality control of the Automated Travelers Forecast, which we provide for Mr. Leavitt's group. They would prefer, I'm sure, to see that manual oversight maintained so that we're not giving them a bad product to deal with.
As far as the marine is concerned, they're going to eliminate longer lead 4-day surface and mid level atmosphere forecasts for the Atlantic and the Pacific, and that would deal with the marine atmosphere interchange.
When you drop forecasts and analyses, you're leaving room for error in your forecasts in the longer term.
I think the most significant reduction would be at the Storm Prediction Center, that they're going to eliminate the midnight shift, Mesoscale Convective Discussions. Briefly what that is, there's a person that is working from midnight to eight in the morning, and every 4 hours, they issue an aviation summary of where all the convection is, where all the thunder storms are.
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Indeed, thunder storms don't—although they mostly occur in the afternoon, they do occur at night, and the aviation community, specifically the shipping industry, the airborne shipping industry, travels mostly at night, do most of their shipping at night. I think that would be a mistake to cancel that particular function.
Mr. DOYLE. Thank you.
Chairman CALVERT. I have one comment to Mr. Smith. I do congratulate the National Weather Service on the progress they've made on tornado prediction. It's now almost a half hour, which has in the last 10 years picked up a lot of them. A lot of lives were saved in Texas and Arkansas because of that.
It was still a disaster in that many people lost their lives, but it would have been much, much worse if our technology hadn't stayed up with that to make those long-term predictions. Hopefully we'll get to the point where we can do the same on other types of calamities. But that certainly did save some lives and we appreciate that.
If there are no further questions, I thank my friends from Sea Grant in California for coming out, and all the rest of you. We appreciate your testimony.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:46 p.m., Wednesday, April 9, 1997, the hearing was adjourned.]
[The following material was received for the record:]
Insert offset folios 150-156
00–000CC
1997
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FISCAL YEAR 1998 BUDGET AUTHORIZATION REQUEST: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE), ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (NOAA)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
APRIL 9, 1997
[No. XX]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York
HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DAVE WELDON, Florida
MATT SALMON, Arizona
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
MARK FOLEY, Florida
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
MERRILL COOK, Utah
PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
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TOM A. COBURN, Oklahoma
PETE SESSIONS, Texas
GEORGE E. BROWN, Jr., California RMM*
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
JAMES A. TRAFICANT, Jr., Ohio
TIM ROEMER, Indiana
ROBERT E. ''BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., Alabama
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
PAUL MCHALE, Pennsylvania
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
ZOE LOFGREN, Califomia
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
WALTER H. CAPPS, Califomia
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
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TODD R. SCHULTZ, Chief of Staff
BARRY C. BERINGER, Chief Counsel
PATRICIA S. SCHWARTZ, Chief Clerk/Administrator
VIVIAN A. TESSIERI, Legislative Clerk
ROBERT E. PALMER, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment
KEN CALVERT, California, Chairman
HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
STEVEN H. SCHIFF, New Mexico
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
MATT SALMON, Arizona
MARK ADAM FOLEY, Florida
PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
TOM A. COBURN, Oklahoma
TIM ROEMER, Indiana
PAUL McHALE, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ZOE LOFGREN, California
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ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
*Ranking Minority Member
**Vice Chairman
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
April 9, 1997:
Fred L. Smith, President and Founder, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC
Anna Aurilio, Staff Scientist, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Washington, DC
David Baldwin, Senior Vice President, General Atomics Fusion Group, San Diego, California
Ralph De Gennaro, Executive Director, Taxpayers for Common $ense, Washington, DC
Scott Sklar, Executive Director, Solar Unity Network, Washington, DC
Aris Melissaratos, Vice President, Science, Technology, and Quality Division, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA
Jerry Taylor, Director, Natural Resource Studies Division, CATO Institute, Washington, DC
Michael S. Leavitt, President, Weather Service Corporation, Lexington, MA, on behalf of Commercial Weather Services Association, Alexandria, VA
David R. Smith, Secretary-Treasurer, National Weather Service Employees Organization, Washington, DC; and Meteorologist, New Orleans Forecast Office
Christopher F. D'Elia, Director, Maryland Sea Grant College Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
James J. Sullivan, Director, California Sea Grant College System, University of California, La Jolla, CA
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(iii)