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FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATION/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY INCLUDING COMPUTER SECURITY AND E-COMMERCE INITIATIVES
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2000
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1 p.m. in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Constance Morella (Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Chairwoman MORELLA. I'm going to call to order the Technology Subcommittee of the Science Committee's hearing. I'm pleased to welcome everyone to this afternoon's hearing, for the 100th annual budget submission—did you hear that? The 100th annual budget submission of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And prior to 1988, its previous incarnation, the National Bureau of Standards.
In the past century, of NIST/NBS budgets, this Federal laboratory has partnered with industry to initiate innovations for safer and more fuel efficient automobiles, biomedical breakthroughs like breast cancer diagnostics, refrigerant and air conditioning standards, analysis of DNA and calibrations for wireless telecommunications, among numerous others.
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In short, in the past 100 years, NIST has assisted in the development of virtually every single major technological development in this Nation, and in turn, has promoted our international competitiveness. In fact, I would challenge anyone in this room to name an innovation that has improved our quality of life that NIST has not had some involvement.
As NIST's Congressional representative, I am proud of NIST and the outstanding and important work of its fine employees. I believe that NIST is a well-run agency with a vital mission to promote economic growth by working with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements and standards integral to our Nation's ability to compete in a global marketplace.
Before beginning our examination of this year's NIST budget request, I'd like to note that in the past three appropriations cycles, Congress has provided NIST with enough funding to begin construction of its much-needed advanced measurement laboratory at the Gaithersburg headquarters. This new state of the art laboratory will allow the laboratory's world class scientists to make precision measurements under stable conditions with tight control of vibration, temperature, humidity, air cleanliness and electrical power. So it's with great pleasure that I look forward to participating in that ground breaking next month.
The fiscal year 2001 Technology Administration budget request totals $722,000,000, of which $713,000,000 is dedicated for NIST's programs and activities. As many of you know, the Technology Administration of the Department of Commerce is comprised of the Office of the Under Secretary and Office of Technology Policy, the National Technical Information Service and NIST.
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I'm pleased to note that this year's budget request seeks to prioritize funding for NIST's laboratory functions, which are viewed as the ''crown jewel'' of the Technology Administration because of their vital work of safeguarding the accuracy standards necessary for domestic and international commerce. The request also includes new initiatives in the areas of computer security and electronic commerce.
For computer security activities, the request includes $50,000,000 to create an Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection. And that will provide research and development grants to universities and the private sector in critical information protection need areas.
Five million dollars in fundamental computer security research in the area of advanced encryption standards and algorithms, and $5,000,000 to establish a permanent Expert Review Team that will help agencies conduct vulnerability analyses and to develop critical infrastructure protection plans. I look forward to reviewing the computer security initiatives to determine whether they are consistent with the role of NIST as envisioned in the Science Committee-sponsored H.R. 2413, the Computer Security Enhancement Act.
That measure, H.R. 2413, has been marked up by the Technology Subcommittee. It is currently awaiting full Committee action.
In the area of e-commerce, $15,000,000 is being requested for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program to conduct e-commerce outreach by producing tool kits and other resources intended to assist small business manufacturers in the purchase of e-commerce products and services. An additional $5,000,000 is requested for NIST to address manufacturing interoperability issues and to address measurement and standards that enable the broad adoption of next generation wireless communications supporting e-commerce.
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And with information technology having accounted for a third of the Nation's economic expansion in the past 4 years, the growth of e-commerce is obviously crucial to our continued prosperity, and I look forward to working with NIST in this area.
Additionally, the NIST budget request includes an increase of $33,000,000 for the advanced technology program. The Technology Administration is requesting an increase of $500,000 to support its growing responsibilities in the areas of space commercialization, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, technology transfer and the National Medal of Technology.
And finally, there's no funding being requested for the National Technical Information Service in the fiscal year 2001 request, since the Administration has asked for a fiscal year 2000 supplemental appropriation of $4,500,000 to transfer many of its functions to the Library of Commerce. I still harbor some concerns with the Administration's plan and intend to discuss the matter further with our witness during the question period.
I want to thank our distinguished panel for their participation in today's hearing and I am eager to hear their views. I do want to welcome Dr. Shavers. I will introduce her later, but do want to welcome her to her first Committee hearing here as the new Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology.
Chairwoman MORELLA. It is now my pleasure to recognize my distinguished ranking member who cares so much and is so committed to this issue, Mr. Barcia.
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Mr. BARCIA. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Morella, for those kind remarks with regard to my concern, but also for the great job you do at each of these hearings in making sure we have timely issues and very distinguished panels of witnesses to share their insight and perspective with the Subcommittee members on these very vital issues before Congress.
I want to join Chairwoman Morella in welcoming our distinguished panel to this afternoon's hearing. I especially want to welcome Dr. Cheryl Shavers, the Under Secretary for Technology. This is Dr. Shavers' first appearance before the Subcommittee, and we look forward to working with her during the coming year.
I also want to take this opportunity to wish Gary Bachula all the best in his new endeavors in the private sector. Gary joined the Technology Administration in 1993 as the Deputy to then Under Secretary Mary Good. And from 1997 through October of 1999, he served as the Acting Under Secretary.
And I want to thank Gary for his outstanding service and hope that we will now see more of him back in Michigan. One time Gary was a constituent of mine, a resident of my Congressional district and came to Congress with my predecessor, Congressman Bob Traxler, who is a very distinguished member of the House Appropriations Committee in Congress and did so much for Michigan and the country.
But Gary, it's good to see you, and I know you'll be entering the private arena and hopefully we'll continue our relationship of working on these vital issues in the future. Thanks, Gary, for your service.
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Chairwoman Morella has already spoken about the important work performed by NIST and the Technology Administration. It is not surprising that the Technology Subcommittee has so many members from the Michigan delegation. NIST's measurements and standards activities provide important support to the automotive and chemical industries. The Advanced Technology program has proved to be a successful industry-university-government partnership. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership assists hundreds of small businesses throughout our State, and a number of Michigan companies that participate in the program have won the Baldridge National Quality Award.
In addition, the Technology Administration's Partnership for a New Generation Vehicle has the enthusiastic support of Michigan's auto industry. I am very interested in learning more about the two new NIST initiatives. The fiscal year 2001 budget request includes $9,000,000 for the transition to e-commerce on small and medium sized businesses. I recently held an e-commerce forum in my district, and more than 300 small businesses participated. As the large turnout indicates, there is a definite need for immediate assistance in this area to our small businesses.
I am also interested in learning more about the $4,000,000 request for manufacturing interoperability. The automotive industry in Michigan has really been in the forefront of interoperability issues. The automotive industry action group, a group of 1,600 auto suppliers that tackle industry issues and supply manufacturing and engineering, conducted a pilot program called Auto Step beginning in 1996. It sought to improve the quality and timeliness of data exchange within the auto supply chain.
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The Standard Exchange of Product Data, or STEP program, has been successful in assisting smaller manufacturers in the auto supply chain overcome interoperability difficulties. It is my hope that NIST's manufacturing interoperability initiative will build upon and strengthen this work and continue to bring its benefits to the auto industry, particularly the small and medium size suppliers that are the base of this very important industry.
Once again, I would like to thank our witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee and look forward to their testimony. Once again, thank you, Madam Chair, for calling this hearing, and for your leadership on all of these issues throughout the session. Thanks.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Barcia.
I'm now pleased to recognize the Vice Chair of the Technology Subcommittee, Mr. Gutknecht from Minnesota.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will be very brief. I want to thank you for the hearing and again thank the panelists for coming today.
I will say that I wear two hats, I'm not only on the Science Committee, I'm on the Budget Committee. We are the bean counters, and we are currently trying to figure out how to squeeze $200,000,000,000 worth of requests into an $18,000,000,000 budget. That may not seem that difficult to those who are watching at home, but it is difficult. And I do believe that science and the work of NIST and the work of many of the programs that we're talking about today is extremely important. But I also believe that we owe it to the taxpayers to make certain that we're getting fair value.
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So I especially want to welcome Mr. Frazier here today, and I will have some questions and comments later.
So please don't take any of the questions or comments that I have personally, but we do sit in these chairs as representatives of the taxpayers, and we need to make certain we're getting fair value. Thank you.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Gutknecht. I wanted to comment on the fact that having joined us is Congressman Baird from Washington State, who said he didn't have an opening comment, he was just very anxious to hear the testimony before us.
STATEMENT OF HON. DEBBIE STABENOW, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MICHIGAN
MS. STABENOW. Madame Chairwoman, Mr. Barcia, I appreciate your opening remarks and for bringing the Subcommittee together today to consider the budget request for the Technology Administration. As Mr. Barcia mentioned, the agencies and programs that come under the purview of the Technology Administration are of great importance to the State of Michigan. I have been a strong supporter of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) because of the vital role they play in advancing cutting-edge technologies and nurturing small businesses. The auto industry has been a valuable partner in both of these programs and has benefitted from the technological advances achieved by small entities. I am pleased that the Fiscal Year 2001 budget request has devoted significant resources to both the ATP and the MEP.
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I am also interested to hear about the new E-Commerce and Interoperability initiatives. By taking a leading role in helping small businesses harness the possibilities of the Internet we will continue to promote commercial efficiency and technological innovation. Currently, money is wasted because of the differences in technology up and down the supply chain of many industries—resources that should instead be used for more productive purposes. This is especially important given the enormous positive impact that technology is having on our economy.
Madame Chairwoman, I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today, and echo Mr. Barcia's comments welcoming Dr. Shavers and thanking Mr. Bachula for his years of good service. I look forward to our proceeding this afternoon.
Chairwoman MORELLA. We do have a distinguished panel of three witnesses before us today. As I mentioned, testifying for the first time since her Congressional confirmation, is the new Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology, Dr. Cheryl Shavers. Dr. Shavers is a native of Arizona, has had a great deal of industry expertise in the areas of intellectual property, semiconductor materials technology, and equipment and device manufacturing.
We welcome her first appearance before the Technology Subcommittee for what we expect to be an enduring partnership to boost our Nation's technological preeminence.
I also want to take a moment also as Mr. Barcia did to extend our very best wishes to Dr. Shavers' predecessor, Gary Bachula, who is sitting there in the first row. I want to thank him for his service and dedication to the Technology Administration, especially for his involvement in the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles program.
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I do remember, Mr. Barcia, when I went to your field hearing in Michigan that Mr. Bachula was there with us. We appreciated that, too. So best wishes, Gary, in your future endeavors.
Our second witness is Ray Kammer, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who's very well known to this Subcommittee for the numerous times he's appeared before us and for his very capable and able service as NIST's chief executive. It might be kind of fun someday for you to have somebody count up the number of times you've appeared before this Subcommittee.
And our final witness is the Department of Commerce Inspector General, Johnnie Frazier. I believe in the role of Inspectors General, or Inspector Generals. And I'm pleased that we have you before us to testify. Mr. Frazier has a distinguished 28 year Federal career, has been of considerable assistance to the Subcommittee in fulfilling our oversight responsibilities over both the Technology Administration and NIST.
Well, as you know, it is the policy of the Science Committee to swear in all those who testify. So if you would kindly stand, raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Chairwoman MORELLA. Everybody said yes, and the report will demonstrate affirmative response.
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Again, we appreciate 5 minutes of testimony, approximately. There's a little elasticity to it, but approximately that. And we will then have an opportunity to ask questions.
So, Dr. Shavers, we'll start with you.
TESTIMONY OF HON. CHERYL L. SHAVERS, UNDER SECRETARY FOR TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Dr. SHAVERS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you today to discuss the Technology Administration fiscal year 2001 budget request.
We are looking forward to working with the Congress on authorizing legislation for the Technology Administration and its component agencies. I ask that my written statement be made a part of the record.
Chairwoman MORELLA. No objection, so ordered.
Dr. SHAVERS. With the 1990s now behind us, we continue to look forward to further economic expansion in the years ahead. At the Technology Administration, we believe that innovation has been and will continue to be crucial, to America's economic success. Innovations form the basis of the new economy, and these innovations, particularly the Internet's rapid emergence, have brought forth an abundance of new small businesses. These innovations pave the way for the tremendous ability we now have to send and receive data, and ultimately to gather, store and retrieve information so as to assist us in our business endeavors.
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Today, the interfaces between and among business and consumers are being altered by the expanding opportunities of electronic commerce. The electronic force unleased by the Internet will be even more powerful within and among businesses, where past problems are being rectified by enhancing the availability and timeliness of information. We are currently seeing this process occur at some of the Nation's largest and most established businesses. Industry, using the benefits of technology, is beginning to consolidate its supply chains through the use of the Internet.
As indicated in our budget documents, which you have received, the Technology Administration plans to play a major role in helping America remain economically competitive. Our budget request includes funding that will allow us to continue assisting industry to move fully into the innovation age. Whether the request is geared toward nanotechnology research and partnerships at NIST or to helping our auto manufacturers and their suppliers compete globally, the overall goal remains the same: keeping the American economy strong.
Our budget request for the Technology Administration overall totals $722,000,000, with the vast majority of that amount going to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST's budget totals $713,000,000, representing an increase of about $77,000,000 over the last year's level.
The Office of the Under Secretary request is $8,700,000, which I'm sure the Committee will agree is a modest increase, totaling only $500,000 over our 2001 base. The budget highlights for the Technology Administration also show some of the expanded work we plan to do in exciting areas such as electronic commerce, computer security and nanotechnology. I ask that the highlights be entered into the record at this point.
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
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Chairwoman MORELLA. Without objection, so ordered.
Dr. SHAVERS. While I will leave the details of NIST's budget to Ray Kammer, I do want to outline some of the highlights of the NIST budget for the Committee. Our request contains a major new initiative designed to protect the Nation's critical infrastructure. To address the vulnerability of our information systems, NIST will engage in a new research and new partnership with the private sector and universities.
Another portion of our budget request focuses on the science of the smallest objects made by humans, referred to as nanotechnology. NIST is already a world leader in this field, and we plan to further develop measurement technologies in this exciting and important new area.
Our fiscal year 2001 budget also proposes new funding to assist businesses in acceleration of electronic commerce. This increase includes an initiative which will enable MEP to work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration on e-commerce outreach programs. The MEP, in partnership with the States, will develop, produce and distribute an e-commerce jump start kit and training curriculum, and test an e-commerce assessment tool and other materials to begin work on e-commerce adoption kits.
For the Under Secretary's office, we are requesting a small increase in four separate areas. First, we are seeking an increase in an area that I know is of concern to the Committee, technology transfer. While the Federal technology transfer programs are very active, more than 3,000 CRADAs in force in 1998, not enough information exists about the effectiveness of the programs in fostering development of new commercial technology. To improve its monitoring of the results of Government-industry research partnerships, TA will use the additional funding to expand the breadth and depth of its reporting on agency technology transfer activities.
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Second, we seek an increase in funding the National Medal of Technology. Increased funding will be used to leverage the prestige of the medal, our Nation's Nobel Prize for technology, to inspire young people to pursue careers in technology. This will be accomplished by conducting fora between medal awardees and elementary, middle and high school students who have shown an interest in science and math.
Third, we are requesting an increase in our Office of Space Commercialization. The Office will dedicate resources to pursue a concerted effort of space market data collection analysis and dissemination, and will also initiate a pilot project to encourage Federal agencies to adopt commercially available space technologies. For example, the integration of commercial satellite imagery and GPS data could help policy makers make better informed decisions by presenting complex economic trends and information visually in a geographic context.
And fourth, we are requesting an increase in the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. PNGV is developing technologies to reduce national dependence on foreign oil and improve the competitiveness of the $300,000,000,000 U.S. automotive industry while protecting the environment. TA and PNGV will use the additional resources to assess the impact of PNGV technologies on the automotive supplier base, in partnership with interested stakeholders in State and regional economies, and to develop an outreach strategy to prepare the supplier base and fuels industry for PNGV challenges.
In this perpetual marathon that is global competition, now is the time to strengthen our national efforts. We must prepare ourselves to seize new opportunities and create fertile ground for economic growth with a healthy business climate, a modern infrastructure, a world class work force and a strong base in science technology.
Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Shavers follows:]
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Chairwoman MORELLA. Remarkable that you covered the highlights of your extensive testimony, which will all be in the record. That you, Dr. Shavers.
Director Kammer.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RAYMOND G. KAMMER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY
Mr. KAMMER. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me. And let me also thank the Committee for their intense and continued support of NIST. We very much appreciate it.
The importance of NIST, I think, is justified by the fundamental position that it occupies in the economy. Recently, I had the opportunity to read a quote from the Bible that suggests that the importance of weights and measures in commerce has always been the case.
For commerce, you have to have money, you have to trust the money supply and you have to trust the weights and measures. The Bible, in Deuteronomy, instructed, ''Thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure thou shalt have.'' The Koran goes on to say, ''Oh my people, serve Allah, and you have no other God than he, and do not give short measure and weight.''
So this is pretty important stuff. And the framers of the Constitution thought so, too.
Chairwoman MORELLA. I think this is the first that we've had the Bible as the authority.
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Mr. KAMMER. There's actually nine quotes in the Bible about weights and measures. And all of them seem to imply short weights and measures were recently being given and people were unhappy about it.
A few years ago, this Committee had the opportunity to hear from Bill Phillips, our Nobel prize winner. I'd like to report to the Committee now that the research that he conducted has been converted into practice. And we now have a new atomic clock we just brought on line this year that is accurate to a second in 20 million years. It replaces an atomic clock that was accurate to a second in about 3 million years.
Only the highest accuracy users, obviously, are going to need that kind of accuracy. But for navigation over the surface of the Earth and for communications coordination, that was put into practice immediately when we made it available. Interestingly enough, we get about 15 million requests a day for accurate time through our time dissemination.
We continue to try to evaluate our programs to make sure we're making good decisions. And the ones that we have recently evaluated have come across with very high rates of return, which we find reassuring. The most recent one we did, sulphur and fuels, has an incredibly high rate of return on it. And it was relatively inexpensive to do, so I look at it as very highly leveraged.
The ATP program is now mature, in some respects. It's been going for about 10 years. And some of the first projects have now been appropriate to evaluate. I can report to the Committee of the first 38 projects, we had four that were home runs. We had six or seven that were abject failures. And we had a bunch in the middle that are making somebody a good living. If I'd known that's all they were going to do, I wouldn't have funded them.
But the home runs are a big payoff. One of them, the Auto Body Consortium, is creating economic activity of $3,000,000,000 a year, which is the total that's been spent on the ATP program so far.
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MEP, I think, is a mature program at this point. But we continue to evaluate it. We did a study about a year ago of 2,800 of our MEP users in Pennsylvania, in one geographic area. That's about a tenth of the people we worked with that year in 1998. And they identified increased revenues of almost $250,000,000 million as a result of MEP advice.
The Baldridge Program is sort of the fourth leg of our chair, if you will. The Baldridge index this year, which is sort of a stock portfolio of Baldridge winners that are traded separately on the stock exchange, outperformed the S&P by almost five to one, suggesting that practicing the Baldridge criteria is a pretty good idea.
Our total request is $713,000,000. That includes increases of $148,000,000 and a decrease for the ebb and flow of the construction program of $71,000,000. So quite a strong statement of support for NIST.
Just to very quickly summarize the items, $60,000,000 to help protect the Nation's information infrastructure; $14,000,000 to help accelerate e-commerce; $46,000,000 to create new technical opportunities; and $15,000,000 to strengthen the Nation's science and technology infrastructure.
The $60,000,000 request for critical infrastructure includes $5,000,000 for an expert review team, $5,000,000 for internal NIST research on interoperability of computer security tools, and a $50,000,000 grants program which I believe would require the authorization of this Committee for us to undertake and may merit further conversation as a result of that.
Within the $14,000,000 e-commerce proposals, we have $9,000,000 for MEP outreach. That will allow us to put 200 additional information infrastructure experts out in the field to assist small- and medium-size business and also create some tools for use by small businesses. In addition to that, we'd like to work on the supply chain. The area that we've been studying is the automotive area. We just did a study that suggests that the automotive industries spend a needless $1,000,000,000 a year because of lack of computer interoperability, which requires them to re-key data in at successive levels. So we think that's an opportunity for a big win. And we'd also like to begin working on interoperability of wireless technologies.
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And then we also, in creating new technologies, Dr. Shavers mentioned nanotechnology, also an increase of $32,000,000 for the ATP. And a new start in combinatorial methods. It is now possible to predict by computing and using theory what the end physical properties of materials and chemical mixtures will be without having to build the plant first and do the experiment. We would like to provide data to create an infrastructure to make this work efficiently for the private sector in the United States.
Just a word about nanotechnology. For those of you who were born before 1956, it's extremely likely that you will live through the start and the finish of the electronic age. Within the next 10 years, I think the principles upon which we now depend for electronics will run out, things will get too small. And instead, we'll have to exploit quantum phenomena. At that point, the AML, the Advanced Measurement Laboratory, will come into play. The lack of vibration in that laboratory is what's critically needed to work at the nano levels.
And then finally, of the science and technology infrastructure that we're considering, one is a totally new start for us. By the year 2050, the Census Bureau says that about half the population is going to be what are now minorities. So the minorities are going to be majorities. They practically don't participate at all in science and technology. School leaders, even highly educated ones, tend not to participate in science and engineering.
What I would like to do is fund minority serving institutions and create graduates in physics and chemistry and other fields that we're interested, and then hire them. And we'd also like to expand our post-doc program to put more emphasis on minority serving institutions, and then finally some facilities maintenance.
And with that, thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kammer follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
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Chairwoman MORELLA. It is so good to have as a backdrop, also, the visual part of your testimony, Director Kammer.
I want to recognize the fact that Congresswoman Rivers from Michigan has joined us.
And now to recognize the Honorable Johnnie Frazier.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHNNIE E. FRAZIER, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Mr. FRAZIER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of the Committee.
I too am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the Office of the Inspector General work at the Technology Administration.
First and foremost, I want to congratulate all three Technology Administration agencies on getting unqualified clean opinions on their fiscal year 1999 financial statement. This is the fourth straight year for TA, the sixth for NIST, and the second for the NTIS. The success of these agencies in receiving clean opinions has contributed to Commerce's first ever clean opinion on its consolidated financial statement.
Now, let me highlight a few of the issues that my office has worked on since I last addressed the Subcommittee. We're attempting to monitor NIST's capital improvement facilities plan. NIST is continuing its efforts to upgrade its facilities to support the type of cutting edge, precise research and measurements services it is known for. It has completed the Advanced Chemical Science laboratory in Gaithersburg and expects to break ground shortly on the long-awaited Gaithersburg AML.
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However, other aspects of its long-range plans still remain uncertain. NIST's long-term facilities plans total more than $926,000,000. This figure includes $218,000,000 for the AML, about $115,000,000 for safety, maintenance and other facilities improvements related to NIST's Gaithersburg campus, and a list of approximately $593,000,000 in potential projects.
While we believe that in the past, NIST has generally been able to demonstrate its need for renovating existing buildings and constructing new ones, we have also found instances where NIST has not adequately justified new facilities and updated its plans.
Discretionary financial assistance programs have also been an area that we are concentrating on. We recently completed our work on NIST's five discretionary grant programs. Thus far, we have issued final reports on four of the program, ATP, MEP, the State Technology Extension program, and the National Standard Reference Data program. I'm pleased to note that these programs were found to be fully competitive and in general compliance with Commerce and Federal guidelines.
In addition, we found that ATP's use of external reviewers to be a best practice that we encourage other grant programs to implement. The fifth report on the measurement and engineering research standards program should be issued shortly. For this program, we are making recommendations aimed at strengthening its competitive process.
Audits of individual ATP and MEP recipients is also something we're continuing to do. In the area of we're here to help you, my office is also continuing to the extent possible our accounting system survey and cost audits of individual ATP and MEP recipients. Thus far this year, we've issued final reports on eight NIST-requested audits and in the process of completing our ninth.
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The audits consisted of seven accounting system surveys and interim cost audits and one final cost audit of a specific cooperative agreement. The accounting system surveys are an important preventive tool aimed at identifying small problems before they become large ones. Moreover, the final cost audit can be especially important, because any unneeded obligated funds that we identify can be de-obligated and used to offset future appropriated requests.
And of course, there is still the question of NTIS. I remain concerned about NTIS, which is still continuing to have serious financial and operating difficulties. Although NTIS reported a profit for fiscal year 1999, this was only achieved through aggressive cost-reduction measures, such as transferring some of its staff to other Commerce agencies.
While such drastic measures can help solve their short-term financial problems, they cannot address the agency's larger, more basic problem. I'm referring here to the agency's ability to remain self-sufficient in the midst of declining sales of its products and services. The Department has proposed closing NTIS by the end of fiscal year 2000, transferring its collection of scientific, technical and engineering publications to the Library of Congress and working with Federal agencies to ensure permanent public access to such publications.
In addition, the United States Commission on Library and Information Sciences has been studying the Commerce proposal. Thus far, the Commission has held three public hearings and issued a position paper for public review and comment. The Commission's anticipated recommendations include keeping NTIS at Commerce through 2001 to allow for further study of the Department's proposal, as well as other alternatives, appropriating sufficient funds estimated at about $5,000,000 to help pay the cost of collecting, organizing and preserving Government information and providing a one-time appropriation to help defray the cost of establishing a program for disseminating reports to the Federal depository libraries.
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There are other challenges that await TA. I'd like to briefly mention two very quickly. The first involves the implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act. Implementation of the Results Act presents an especially difficult challenge for agencies like TA that are engaged in scientific research in the formulation of technology policy. Measuring the benefits of investments in scientific research, especially in the long term, has proven difficult. TA needs to press its agencies to continue to develop comprehensive performance measures to strengthen compliance with the Results Act.
And still another management challenge facing TA will be the implementation of the Commerce Administrative Management System, also known as CAMS. It's no secret that this system, and Commerce's efforts to develop and implement it, have taken way too long and cost way too much. The Department is now developing and implementing CAMS in stages. Now that CAMs has been implemented at the Census Bureau, implementation will begin at NIST.
Based on our experiences at Census, NIST should not underestimate the difficulties associated with installing new financial management system there. Planning and implementation will have to be carefully managed to minimize delays, disruptions and costs.
This completes my statement, and of course, if there are any questions, I'd be glad to address them.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Frazier follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
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Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Frazier.
I'm going to start the questioning now with Mr. Kammer. I wanted to ask you, Director Kammer, what the primary function is of that $50,000,000 request for the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection, which I guess they call IIIP. I just wonder what examples of the critical information protection need areas that a new grant program like the IIIP would be designed to address.
Mr. KAMMER. The current state of computer safety, if you will, computer safety on the Internet, is, there aren't that many people attacking, but when they do, they find it easy to succeed. The distributed denial of service attack that we recently saw that brought down some vendors on the Internet is trivial. It's not a hard thing to do. In fact, that particular one is downloadable from a chat room.
One expects in the future much more sophisticated attacks are going to take place. We're finding at least as things stand now that the marketplace doesn't seem very interested in addressing a lot of these tools, the safety tools that we need. Because the benefits don't seem to be particularly appropriable to individual companies.
So for instance, the denial of service attack, the distributed denial of service attack, could be prevented. Filters would stop it. That's technically possible. But people don't bother to do it.
I can report to you that the Government, the Federal Government, is thought to be the best at implementing computer security. Forty-five percent of the successful malicious attacks that are made on the Government are called buffer overflow attacks, it's a simple technology for which there has been a free patch available for 3 years that you could download. I mean, it takes 10 minutes to implement.
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And so the state of play at the moment is that most people are not paying as much attention to computer security as they ought to. Our hope is to identify items by consultation with the private sector, with other Federal agencies, including DOJ, DOD, OMB, and DARPA, in particular, technology areas where other people are not working, where it doesn't appear that the marketplace gives them an incentive to work, but where if tools were provided, we could probably expect people to use them. And this will be done through competitive grants, where advertisements, public advertisements are made, people make proposals and then peer review selects the winners.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Will there be any financial match, like ATP or other grant programs?
Mr. KAMMER. Our thought has been no, because our thinking is that we'll be funding things for which there's not an economic—the benefit is to the infrastructure as a whole. We're all terribly inconvenienced if part of the Internet is pulled down. But the individual is not able to profit from that. If there were a profit benefit, we probably shouldn't be doing it. Certainly this is not a marketplace area where people are reluctant to address things where they think they can make a profit. They seem to do it almost overnight.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Those entities that would seek to profit by it, would they be seeking you out, or would you be doing outreach to let them know it's available?
Mr. KAMMER. I think that we'll find that we'll have relatively little trouble getting people to bid. Not-for-profits, academics, as well as for-profits, would be eligible. One of the things that we would be having to wrestle with on a case by case basis is who owns the intellectual property. If we want something widely practiced, we probably would like to give it away.
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That actually is the conclusion we reached with the advanced encryption standard, which we hope to announce this summer. And although many people are working on it, we're not paying anybody for it, and then we don't intend actually to charge for it. We're going to release it into the public domain.
That worked with DES, which is the most widely practiced encryption in the world.
Chairwoman MORELLA. I'd like to, during my time, ask Mr. Frazier, do you think there's going to be any cost savings to the Federal Government by closing NTIS and transferring its collection to the Library of Congress?
Mr. FRAZIER. I don't think that overall you'll see any savings. I think that what you will have is you will have more attention that will be paid to the operation. So we'd like to think that there will be some efficiencies and greater effectiveness there. It's no secret, Madam Chairwoman, that NTIS has had problems for many, many years. I think some of it goes back very candidly to management. If you pick up one of our reports that goes back to probably 1995, we had highlighted some of the concerns about the direction that they were heading.
And some of the things that we saw coming down the pike, I don't think that managers out at NTIS at that time paid enough attention to those issues. And in fact, I think we foresaw what was coming. And so we're in that position today, and I don't think we had to be there.
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Chairwoman MORELLA. If you don't think there's any real cost benefit, then critics of the Department's plan might argue that NTIS should remain under Department of Commerce as an entity at that point. I wonder if you have an opinion about that, where NTIS should be housed.
Mr. FRAZIER. I think that the real problem is, is that we've always spoken about the financial viability of NTIS. But one of the things that has not received enough attention, in my opinion, has been to look at the continuing mission of NTIS. I think if you look at NTIS as it has always existed, that's one issue.
But I don't think that you can do that any longer. Things are changing so rapidly out at NTIS, NTIS started to take on a great deal of what we call expansionary kinds of projects, working on things for the Internal Revenue Service. And whereas those things would have been nice things to be accomplished, unfortunately, those were not the kinds of things that they were originally set up for.
And so I think that before you decide in terms of whether it should stay in the Department, whether it should go somewhere else, you have to address a more fundamental issue of what should be the continuing mission of NTIS. And I don't think that there's been enough discussion of that issue.
So you can't just deal with what I call the $5,000,000 that it may cost to deal with the archival of the important scientific and technical information. You have to decide to deal with the bigger picture of NTIS and the other duties and roles and responsibilities that it has taken on in the last 3 to 5 years.
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Chairwoman MORELLA. So do you have any feeling about where that kind of entity should be housed?
Mr. FRAZIER. It's going to be a policy call in the sense that if you decided to just do what I call the basic archival issues, that's the $5,000,000 operation. It can stay in the Commerce Department, it can be moved somewhere else. But again, there is a bigger issue that says, the mission of NTIS, which has been expanding over the last 3 to 5 years, needs to be addressed.
We have not looked at it in the last 3 years in terms of the continuing mission. We have looked at the financial aspects of it, because we were very concerned about that. But something we recommended then, back in 1995, then thinking that there should be a new life, they have an opportunity to continue to stay in the Department of Commerce.
It's going to be a decision, I think, that the policy makers are going to have to deal with.
Chairwoman MORELLA. My time has expired. Thanks, Mr. Frazier.
I now defer to Mr. Barcia.
Mr. BARCIA. Thank you, Chairwoman Morella.
I have two questions for Mr. Kammer. The first being, e-commerce is a rapidly changing field, and the challenges facing our small manufacturers are immediate. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program places significant emphasis on the development of assessment kits, which won't be ready to be deployed until well into 2001.
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I am concerned that by the time these assistance kits are available, they will no longer be relevant or timely. How has the MEP e-commerce initiative addressed these concerns? Could you speak to that, Ray?
Mr. KAMMER. You bet. First of all, it's definitely too late to be early. I could wish that we had succeeded in making this proposal earlier than we have. NAM, just this last week, came out with a report that was an assessment of small and medium size manufacturers and their ability to conduct e-commerce. And by their calculation, 80 percent of small- and medium-size manufacturers and their ability to conduct e-commerce. And by their calculation, 80 percent of small- and medium-size businesses at this point are extremely naive about e-commerce, perhaps totally unaware.
That's not terribly inconsistent with a survey that was done about the Y2K issue of small and medium size companies in Connecticut about 2 years ago, where only 12 percent of the companies surveyed in that survey of small- and medium size manufacturers even knew what Y2K was. So I suspect the NAM study is pretty close to right.
And I'll add a third fact to that and then just agree that this is an urgent problem and I wish we could go faster. But I suspect there are still going to be quite a few people that have not adjusted to this by the time we get the budget initiative.
Economists are now estimating that $3,000,000,000,000 of the economy in 2003 will be over the Internet, business to business. At that point, they're estimating the economy will be about $12,000,000,000,000 for the United States, so it's 25 percent. It's a few percent right now. So we're in for change at the speed of light, I agree with you. And as I say, I wish we could be earlier.
Mr. BARCIA. Well, and then one follow-up question, Mr. Kammer. A portion of MEP's fiscal year 2001 e-commerce request is funded by redirecting $6,000,000 for the MEP-based program. What MEP-based programs will be affected by this redirection of funds and resources?
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Mr. KAMMER. There is always an ebb and flow, as you know, this is a matching funds program where sort of by the sixth year, we're putting up roughly 1/3, the States are putting up roughly 1/3, and the rest comes from fees. There's always States coming up short. And we expect that we can finance this out of sort of failures in the matching funds, where we would have held the money and perhaps seen if there were other people that wanted to increase their match.
This was urgent enough to me, again, and I failed in the prior year to persuade everybody that it was urgent, that I decided that I needed to show how urgent I thought it was.
Mr. BARCIA. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Barcia.
I'm pleased to recognize Mr. Gutknecht for questioning.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I want to go to Mr. Kammer. You said 15 million requests a day for the atomic clock?
Mr. KAMMER. Yes. On the evening of the rollover to year 2000, it was over 20 million.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Who are all these people? [Laughter.]
Mr. KAMMER. Well, I actually know who some of them are, quite a few of them. I think some of them are probably a little obsessive compulsive, but——
[Laughter.]
Mr. GUTKNECHT. That's right.
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Mr. KAMMER. I mean, you know. But the NASDAQ, about two years ago, instructed that if you buy a stock over the Internet, that you had to time stamp it to plus or minus three seconds. Now, we're time stamping, our service offers it to plus or minus about 10 milliseconds, so that's probably good enough. But I think in an excess of caution, people began to use the time service stamp that we have.
In fact, it's gotten so large now that we're talking with two companies about them taking commercial responsibility for this. I don't view us as an operational agency. I view us as a research agency. And what we would do is take a step back, and they would offer a service, they could perhaps put advertisements on it and finance it that way rather than charge people for it. But they'll have to make a market place decision on how they do it. And then we'll just calibrate the service providers, and they'll provide a commercial service.
But this has come on us so fast that it just didn't occur to us.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. No, it didn't occur to me, either. Because simple arithmetic, in 20 days, every American would have set their watch.
Mr. Frazier, I want to come back to a couple of questions related much more to budget and to your role. It seems that every year, the ATP program, the Advanced Technology Program, is carrying over substantial unobligated and unliquidated funding balances. According to the General Accounting Office, ATP had a carryover balance in excess of $400,000,000 in aggregate over, between fiscal year 1995 and fiscal year 1999. In fiscal year 1999, for example, this carryover totaled nearly $68,000,000 in unobligated balances. For this year, the ATP unobligated carryover from fiscal year 2000 will total just over $36,500,000, or almost 25 percent of the fiscal year 2000 appropriated level.
In some respects, I don't want to force agencies to go out and spend all of their money in the last two weeks of the budget cycle. So in some respects I hate to punish an agency for carrying over. But on the other hand, what is your view of that, and does that not in some respects argue that we are appropriating more money than they really can legitimately spend?
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Mr. FRAZIER. I think it raises a number of issues. One, when we go out to do individual audits, that unfortunately seems to be the only time that we get a real realistic indication as to how much money they have spent and need to spend. I mentioned earlier that we do these audits of individual ATP recipients. Invariably, when we go out there, we find that they haven't drawn down anywhere near the amount of money that we thought they would have drawn down by that point in time. Then we complete the final audit and then we can in turn get that money de-obligated.
I have one project, for example, that's ongoing, and the project ended almost two years ago. And the project, and there's additional monies, I'm not sure exactly what the figures are. But there were substantial monies that were available to be de-obligated.
You're right on the money, you know, it involves people monitoring it at the NIST level to watch the money that is drawing down, knowing about the progress that is being made on the individual projects. Because otherwise the only way that we can really tell is when we go out to do a final audit or an interim audit. And unfortunately, we do those when NIST requests them or if we get a lead or a indication as to a problem existing.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Sort of a follow-up question to this, and either of the other witnesses can respond as well, according to the President's fiscal year 2001 budget submission, they intend on using $4,500,000 in ATP carryover for the National Technical Information Service closure. And $19,300,000 for new ATP grants, or for new ATP grants in fiscal year 2001 for a total of $23,800,000.
Now, again, according to the General Accounting Office, they have just over $36,500,000 in ATP carryover for fiscal year 2000 available to offset 2001 requests. I guess the question as a budgeteer is what happened to the $12,800,000 difference.
Mr. KAMMER. I can comment on that. The lower number was injected into the President's budget in November. And by the time, the GAO number of about $30,000,000 in carryover that they estimated is based on the ATP estimate that was done at the end of December. It was too late to catch up with the President's budget, but the $30,000,000 number is the correct number.
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Mr. GUTKNECHT. Does that mean that you will be able to readjust the $175,500,000 request downward to somewhere in the neighborhood of $163,000,000?
Mr. KAMMER. Yes, sir. That's one of the ways of going about it.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. As a Budget Committee member, we like to hear that. Thank you. [Laughter.]
Chairwoman MORELLA. I can tell you're a Budget Committee member, Mr. Gutknecht.
I'm now going to recognize Ms. Rivers, but I wanted to also acknowledge that Mr. Udall from Utah is with us, and Mr. Wu from Oregon.
Ms. Rivers.
Ms. RIVERS. Mr. Udall from Colorado, not Utah.
Chairwoman MORELLA. From Colorado.
Ms. RIVERS. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really have only a single question that I want to ask, and before I ask it, I am pleased to see the information that is now becoming available on ATP and MEP, and that they are paying off, representing a good investment for the taxpayers in this country.
The thing that I wanted to ask you about is the $4,000,000 that you've put in your budget for the manufacturing engineering lab to conduct studies on interoperability problems. In my neck of the woods, where we build cars, we've known for a long time that when we have interoperability problems, we're losing money. And so I'm very interested in knowing how you feel this particular problem is going to be addressed. I know the number is around $1,000,000,000 a year in loss.
Mr. KAMMER. This is really a huge problem. And our $4,000,000 proposal is just a start. But we have done, the $1,000,000,000 number is actually based on a study we did last year of the automotive industry.
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Ms. RIVERS. Right.
Mr. KAMMER. And I was amazed. I would have never imagined it was that large. And the automotive industry is not the whole economy, so there's a lot of money——
Ms. RIVERS. It is where I'm from. [Laughter.]
Mr. KAMMER. Well, there's that. There's a lot of money falling on the floor. And, the other scarce resource that's being used is people, because the costs all are rising from having to re-key at every level. Because you've got different formats, different kinds of programming.
So this is a start on the problem. Our intent is to focus on automotive and discrete parts manufacturing for our experiments, if you will, to see if we can do this and get it right. In part, that's because the automobile industry is well known to us. It's also in part because they know they've got a problem. A lot of industry doesn't. And they seem very willing to engage, indeed, eager to.
Ms. RIVERS. Great, thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Rivers.
Let me ask Director Kammer, first of all, mention was made of the 15 million hits on this atomic clock. Who's guarding the clock? [Laughter.]
Do you have any security on it?
Mr. KAMMER. That is under two levels of security. We have an overall firewall at NIST. And interestingly enough, I view us as a somewhat obscure agency. I mean, I love it, but you know. And we get 40 or 50 malicious attacks a day that we detect on the firewall.
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Now, you know, the thing you always have to be pretty humble about is, maybe you're really adroit when you don't detect. But we have an overall firewall, and then the time service, which we view as a critical service, has an additional firewall. So you have to get through two levels of security.
And indeed, we have identified attacks specifically on the time service. In fact, we had one recently which did not succeed, and we were able to follow it back to its source, which was pleasing, but doesn't always happen.
Chairwoman MORELLA. So you feel that you're doing the best available?
Mr. KAMMER. History so far suggests, and this is, like I say, this is an area where humility is more than justified. As soon as you say, I'm a real smart guy and everything's fine, something really awful will happen to you. But we have consciously designed a sort of a series of firewalls, and so far, they've been successful.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Let me go on to another subject. I know you remember quite vividly the discussions that we had and how we worked closely with NIST and industry to modernize that 1990 Fastener Quality Act last year. And I wonder, how has that Public Law 106–34 been implemented? And I ask that with the backdrop of the fact that industry has pointed out to me that there is a lack of a hot line, also there's been some concern about labeling and although we'll be adding some additional questions to you for your response, I just wondered if you would comment on the implementation of that law.
Mr. KAMMER. You bet. We published a proposed rule on December 15th of 1999. Under that rule, people could through self-declaration demonstrate their compliance with the quality system, which we would then deem in compliance with the law. We received 13 comments back only. And we're in the process of, you know, the Government has rules, we have to analyze the comments and a certain procedure. And we're just about done with that, and we expect to publish the final rule.
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When we publish the final rule, we will open the hotline at the same time. And I'm hopeful that in the next month or so we'll be able to do that. With respect to the issue of labeling, people have confused their legitimate right to put any kind of label they darn well please with the kind of labeling that is regulated under this Act.
You can put your own label, in addition to the mark that you register with the Patent Office. So nobody's being denied their sort of commercial identity, which would be an unfair thing. And I think maybe we need a little more clarity in our explanations of this, so that people don't feel that perhaps they are being denied the ability to, you know, they may have had a label that's been in the marketplace for 50 years, and that's how people buy their stuff. And they need to have that authority to do that, they do. They just maybe took our words to mean otherwise, and we need to do a little better job in speaking about it.
Chairwoman MORELLA. How do you account for the fact that you only got 13 comments?
Mr. KAMMER. I think we finally got it right. [Laughter.]
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you. As I say, we'll be submitting some questions that we hear about the implementation of it.
Dr. Shavers, I'm going to get to you, don't worry about that. If my time runs out—well, I see I'm not red yet.
The Administration is requesting $125,000 as an increase for the Technology Administration to improve the visibility and the impact of the National Medical of Technology. And you note in your testimony that you're going to use that money to help increase the visibility or the impact of the National Medal of Technology and the prestige to inspire young people to get involved.
How would your initiative in that regard differ from the work that's now being done by the non-profit National Science and Technology Medals Foundation?
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Dr. SHAVERS. Ours basically differs into, we have established a Youth Medal of Technology out in the community and tried to reach more children, looking at that and mapping that with winners. Also, we're looking at right now in our current medal program, we have a webcast, and we have over 200 students that will attend the current Medal of Technology with Mr. Wizard, and we've been able to get Stevie Wonder to come.
So we're raising the visibility of how technology actually touches their lives. And it's different in that it goes down to the grass roots in the community and reaching communities that have not had a chance to actually look at those programs.
Chairwoman MORELLA. How's Stevie Wonder going to help? You can think about that.
Dr. SHAVERS. Well, he will be in the audience, because one of the winners that's announced actually worked with the blind, application of technology for the blind.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Excellent. Very good point.
It's now my pleasure to recognize Mr. Udall, who is now from the State of Colorado. [Laughter.]
Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman MORELLA. They know about him in Utah, too.
Mr. UDALL. I must say, although I'm very happy to be affiliated with the beautiful State of Utah, and I think you flatter me, you may have insulted the Utah delegation and you have some work to do to rectify things with them.
Thank you for the time. I want to welcome the panel and make the point that I always do when you all are here, that we're blessed in my district, in the Second District of Colorado, in Boulder, to have a NIST facility. And it's an important part of our community, and there are benefits that extend beyond just the science and the hard work that's done there.
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I've been there a couple of times, as you know, Director, and have been impressed with the quality of the work that's done there. But I've also become increasingly concerned, and I think the Chairwoman knows, with the condition of the facilities. I'm going to direct my questions at you in that regard.
It seems like the most visible need is for the renovation of existing buildings. And we've got last year's report from the National Research Council Board on Assessment and from the visiting committee. And they talk, and I hope I'm not using words that are out of line here, but the sorry state of the facilities. Why doesn't the President's request include at least some funds to address these renovation needs?
Mr. KAMMER. I view it as a failure on my part to be sufficiently persuasive. I feel passionately that these facilities need to be renovated. They're 46 years old. They were not designed really particularly well as laboratories. I view them more as office buildings with reinforced floors.
And at the time, the presumption was that chemistry was not relevant to vacuum tube technology and radio frequency broadcasting, which were specialties that were contemplated for that area, which was very electromagnetically quiet at that time. And chemistry is the centerpiece of electronics now. And we do chemistry in buildings that were not designed for chemistry, and I'm not comfortable with that.
It remains a high priority with me. I can only say that I'm going to run into the wall again, I'm going to try as hard as I can to persuade people that this needs to be done. I think it's appropriately our top remaining priority among our facilities programs.
Mr. UDALL. I would hope, too, that I can enlist the Chairwoman, who has a NIST facility in her district, in this crusade. We've done some important work in Gaithersburg, and I think that most of us agree that we need to extend our efforts to Boulder as well.
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Now, talk a little bit about the central utility plant and the site distribution system. This is also something that I don't see mentioned in the budget. Can you talk to that?
Mr. KAMMER. The start of renovation, the foundation before you can even get to the labs, is, we currently have very old style low capacity electric power distribution system. Our priority, first priority, would be to have a new electric power distribution system. That would cost about $6,000,000. And it's a little pricey, because it has to be buried underground. In that community, that would be the only way it would be acceptable.
And then secondly, at the moment, our power is generated from, rather inefficiently, from a bunch of transformers and generators that are distributed around the site. And our air conditioning is through window units that hang out of windows on the site and don't work terribly well, and make the research environment rather challenging. Because it isn't so much that you need to be cool, but you need the temperature to stay the same. And you can't do that with a window unit.
So our second priority would be a central power unit that would cost about $29,000,000. And having accomplished those two things, we'd finally be ready to address renovation of the laboratories themselves.
Mr. UDALL. My son would correct you, he would say it is important to be cool, but that's another issue. [Laughter.]
So what I hear you saying is that you're serious about keeping these labs open, that you're committed to doing all you can. Because at first look at the budget, it doesn't appear that that maybe is the case. So I express some real concern today about this situation.
Mr. KAMMER. And I think rightly so. And as I say, I view it as a failure on my part not to be sufficiently persuasive. The staff in Boulder, the technical staff in Boulder, is world class. We do things there that are unique in the world.
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Mr. UDALL. I agree.
Mr. KAMMER. And it's also, you know, I've got two sort of recruiting strategies when I'm trying to enlist young people to come to NIST. You like the east coast? We can accommodate that. You like the mountains? We can accommodate that. And you know, different kinds of people like to go different places.
But I place a real high value on having those two environments. We also have an association with the University of Colorado that is just unbelievably good. Some of the best work we've ever done has been in collaboration with professors from the University of Colorado.
Mr. UDALL. Yes, we have a very unique—well, I shouldn't say unique, because it exists in other places in the country, but a great situation where we have a series of labs in the area. We have the university and we have the high tech community that's really rooting itself in the Second District, and there's a great synergy there.
Well, maybe we can, and I profess I don't know what the situation is, but I think the Chairwoman maybe skis a little bit, we should get her to come to Colorado and visit the facility there, and I'll make my way to Gaithersburg as well. I'm not sure who would have the toughest duty, but I think they'd both be great visits to make.
I see my time has expired, and I thank Madam Chair for the time.
Chairwoman MORELLA. You certainly do represent Colorado well, and maybe I will go to Boulder some time during ski time. But certainly, I don't know how fair it is to say I go to Boulder and you go to Gaithersburg, when even with traffic, we can get you there faster. But I do invite you to Gaithersburg, and certainly I thought the Q&A with regard to the oversight in the budget with Boulder was very appropriate. So I thank you for posing that.
Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Chair, right now I have no further questions. But I would like to reserve the right to perhaps in writing submit a couple of questions to the witnesses concerning the budget request.
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Chairwoman MORELLA. Without objection, they have consented to do so.
Let me get back to NTIS. I just don't want to let Commerce off the hook totally, and I know you weren't there, Dr. Shavers, when these decisions were made. But I just wonder, what efforts have been made to respond or address the concern of the NTIS user community since the Administration announced its plan last year?
Dr. SHAVERS. To my understanding, there has been some open meetings with the public and the report came out to the Committee. And as far as I know, that there is no other action available. They're waiting for a response back from the Congress on the plan that the Department of Commerce submitted.
Chairwoman MORELLA. It is an area that we continue to have an interest in, being from this region, what NTIS had been projected to do. So I hope that you will keep us posted on the development, and you, too, Mr. Frazier.
Mr. FRAZIER. Definitely.
Dr. SHAVERS. Yes.
Chairwoman MORELLA. I'm also interested, Mr. Frazier, in the GPRA Act. This Committee is one that really tries to look at what the intention is and whether or not it is being fulfilled. I think it could be an important tool, if used appropriately, to improve agencies' performance. You find some fault with the Technology Administration's relying mostly on the number of reports issued as its performance as such. And I just wonder what some of the better indicators that the Technology Administration might use. I mean, is there any information on whether specific Technology Administration recommendations are implemented into Government policy, or who uses their reports?
Mr. FRAZIER. Yes. Let me say two things, Madam Chairwoman. One of the things that I highlighted is the inherent nature of the Technology Administration, when they try and do performance assessments and measures, is just a very, very difficult task. I think that's what they have tried to wrestle with. So we are not being critical of them in terms of what it hasn't done. We are almost telling them what's ahead.
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One of the things that we are currently doing in my office is just looking at the MEP program, for example, to see how they are putting together their performance measures. At the Department of Commerce, there are a number of what we call business centers that are very similar to MEP. The Minority Business Development Agency has one called the Business Development Centers. The International Trade has its Export Assistance Centers. And all of these are organizations that have to assist U.S. businesses.
And so we are looking at the group of them, with the idea of hopefully finding some things that people may be able to use across the board. It's a difficult challenge. One of the things, even in my own shop, when I tried to come up with some of the performance measures that I would use in the IG shop, I ran into a lot of difficulties. So we are very much aware that this is something that's difficult.
But at the same time, I think that the Congress and the general public is demanding that Government programs be able to demonstrate the contributions that have been made from amounts of money that have been invested in these programs.
Chairwoman MORELLA. How closely do you work with them in trying to fulfill the Government Performance and Results Act?
Mr. FRAZIER. If you look at our top 10 challenges facing the Department of Commerce, we have that on our list. And it's interesting, because in the IG community, it's just about on every other IG's list also. We just realized what a difficult task it is. And at the same time, we recognize just how important it is.
So I'd like to think that we're working very closely with the Bureaus, because one, we understand how difficult it is, and at the same time, we understand that it's something that must happen.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Good. Very good. I'm glad you are so doing. I think it's quite wise.
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Mr. Kammer, switching back to you, why has NIST been established, or actually, why has NIST been really selected to establish an expert review team that will help agencies conduct vulnerability analyses and to develop critical infrastructure protection plans? I mean, what are NIST's unique capabilities in this area?
Mr. KAMMER. First of all, I think perhaps we start with legislative and policy preferences to make a distinction between civilian agencies and Defense and Justice agencies. And historically, NIST has been the civilian source of protection for privacy for the Government.
But secondly, we also have an active research program. And we were the source of the data encryption standard, which I mentioned earlier, and that's the most widely used piece of privacy and data accuracy technology in the world. And we hope to be this summer the source of the advanced encryption standard, which will replace the data encryption standard. I think that made people naturally think that we were the right place to go.
We have a good reputation in the community, we work with academics, we work with the private sector. We're a non-regulatory agency who never wants to be regulatory. I suspect those are the reasons that influence people.
Chairwoman MORELLA. I thank you, Director Kammer.
I now will recognize Mr. Udall for further questioning.
Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't believe I have any additional questions. But I would like the opportunity to submit some questions for the record.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Indeed.
Mr. UDALL. And then I would add again that I look forward to working with Director Kammer to see that we get this renovation done, so we can continue that great work in Boulder.
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And finally, Madam Chair, I will undertake the trip to Gaithersburg, if you will take the difficult trip to Boulder to see the facility out there. I appreciate your support and interest in what we're doing as well. Thank you.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Udall. I look forward to having you be my guest out in Gaithersburg. And we will certainly discuss and, and maybe we can do a virtual visit to Boulder. There you go. We'll use our technology in that regard.
Mr. UDALL. That could work.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Good. Good.
Dr. Shavers, TA is requesting increased funding for the Office of Space Commercialization for a number of new initiatives. How does the Office of Space Coordination coordinate its plans with maybe some similar activities at NASA and FAA?
Dr. SHAVERS. They work quite closely with those organizations, especially in collaboration in terms of looking at sectors and markets in which, and programs in which they can collaborate. But basically we are concentrating on the commercialization aspect in the private sector and complement the activities of NASA with its programs as well as the other organization—I can't recall the other organization at this moment.
So they do collaborate quite a bit.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Well, we ask these questions, we hope that you will know that we have an interest in it and will keep us posted on it.
And a question for Mr. Kammer, I'm very interested in what NIST and the Technology Administration are doing to ensure that the international standard setting process is fair to U.S. companies, something we've discussed before at our hearings that I think is so important. Has NIST provided any grants to private entities to promote U.S. standards internationally?
Mr. KAMMER. We will be this year. ANSI will receive a grant of $500,000 that was appropriated in this year's budget, the year 2000 budget. And most likely, that will be used to expand their financial ability to participate in the ISO and the IAC. And that's what we're in the process of agreeing on right now.
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In addition to that, we've been working, as the Chairwoman knows, for actually two and a half years, to get the U.S. standards community to agree on a standard strategy, so that we can have conversations with the ISO and the IAC. Ironically, I've had the opportunity to talk with the leadership of ISO and IAC and make them aware of at least my personal views on this. And in both cases, leadership came back and said, we agree that accommodations need to be made, not necessarily that they're committing to make the ones I'd like them to make, but that they're willing to engage in the talk and they're willing to agree that change is probably justified.
Our biggest challenge has been getting the standard, the voluntary standards writing community in the United States to agree on a list of desirata that we would then discuss. I think we're close. I think we're very close. But I'll know more, we're going to have a meeting in a couple of weeks. And I have ambitions at that meeting of having the final agreement on a national standards strategy, but we'll see.
Chairwoman MORELLA. You know, if this Subcommittee can help in any way with, you know, the U.S. private companies, we'd be happy to try to do something, whether letter writing or whatever.
A final question to you, Mr. Kammer. Just in general, the Technology Administration Act, which the President signed into law, created a teacher training program. And that would allow teachers to work with some of your scientists at NIST and learn from them. And as you know, I'm very supportive of this initiative, and yet I don't see it included in the fiscal year 2001 budget request. I just wondered if the program is proceeding okay without any additional funding?
Mr. KAMMER. No, nothing is going on.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Nothing is going on?
Mr. KAMMER. Nothing is going on. We had a proposal, as I——
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Chairwoman MORELLA. Pretty succinct answer.
Mr. KAMMER. As I know you recall, we had a proposal in the budget for fiscal year 1999. And it just fell to the floor with a thud. It was just not viewed by either the appropriators in the House or the Senate as of even mild interest. I'd given it a high personal priority in conversations with them. And given the modest amount of money, it didn't seem impossible to accommodate.
But people felt that this was just an inappropriate role for us and I got pretty crisp feedback in both, especially from the House Appropriations Committee. As a result, we decided we'd better just take no for an answer.
Chairwoman MORELLA. It would be interesting to see, among the recommendations that will later on this year come out from that Glenn Commission, you know, on teaching math and science, I just have a feeling, because they discuss a lot about getting the public sector and the private sector engaged in teacher training, teacher preparation. So it may well be that we will then see some kind of a role.
Mr. KAMMER. I had a lot of enthusiasm for the idea. Motivated in large part by the situation we're in, something like half our teachers are in sight of retirement. If, let's say, you wanted to be a math teacher, that means if you went to a decent school, when you graduate, you're going to be able to program in C++, guaranteed. You can go to AOL and start at $40,000 and in 5 years you can be making $80,000. You can go into the Montgomery County school system and be paid $28,000. In the first 5 years you have to get a masters on your own time. And by the end of that, we'll be paying you about $40,000.
It's not—even for people with a great disposition to teach who have enthusiasm for it, the disparity in pay at this point is just crazy.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Also a disparity with the public sector, too.
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Mr. KAMMER. Yes. I can hire them easier than they can go into teaching, too. I'll pay them more than they'll get paid as a teacher, too.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Yes, you will, but even then the private sector can do even better than you can.
Mr. KAMMER. Much.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Even with the ability we've given you for some flexibility.
Mr. KAMMER. Yes.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Right. I just want to finally ask each one of you if there's any final comment you would like to make for the record, or to call our attention to anything.
Dr. Shavers, again, we appreciate your being here, and from our personal visit, we gained a great deal from knowing more about you and your plans.
Dr. SHAVERS. I think it's just, my first time here and it's been quite an experience coming from the private sector to the public sector. But what I have seen is, there's a great love of technology on both sides and a desire to actually make the lives of American citizens as well as the international community embrace technology much more. I'd like to certainly tell the Committee that I will be working with them as closely as I can and provide as much information on a variety of topics as I continue to work with you in the next year.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you. I particularly appreciate the fact that you have come also from the private sector doing extensive work, and I think that's a very important ingredient you give to your task and to your responsibility.
Director Kammer, we fired a lot of questions at you. I hope they don't mind.
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Mr. FRAZIER. No, we loved it. [Laughter.]
Mr. KAMMER. Well, now I have more insight into the character of my friends here.
I just want to thank the Committee for the support they're showing for NIST by holding this authorization hearing, and for the kindnesses that you all have extended to us in the past, and I hope into the future.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Well, you've been great to work with. You had a long day, didn't you? I think you were before one of the Government Reform Subcommittees earlier today.
Mr. KAMMER. Actually, the NIST deputy, Karen Brown, did that one. Because originally this Committee and that committee were scheduled at the same time. Since she had already prepared by the time schedules moved.
Chairwoman MORELLA. Well, I'm glad—never mind, I'm glad that you chose to be here, thank you, we're honored.
Mr. Frazier.
Mr. FRAZIER. The only thing that I would follow up is, following up on some of your questions and concerns about NTIS, I think that your concerns are well placed. One of the points that we made, again, as long as two years ago here, is that the Department work very closely with the Congress. So I would think that to the extent that your Subcommittee, and to the extent that the other members of Congress will weigh into this issue, I think that the Administration will move quicker to get the issue resolved.
So I think that it is an issue that I think the Administration understands is something that they must work with the Congress. And I think you can play a very important part there.
Thank you.
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Chairwoman MORELLA. Thank you. And I thank you for appearing before us. I reiterate the fact that I think that that role of Inspector General is very important. I'm not sure that we all utilize the expertise that our Inspector Generals know in the public policy arena.
Thank you. I want to thank all of you for being here today. And our Subcommittee is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:28 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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