As we enter our second century of service to the Nation, NIST remains committed to our core mission to provide the scientific and technological support – particularly in measurement science – essential to the security needs of the Nation, the research needs of our scientists, and the commercial needs of our industry.

    Whether it is working to ensure the accuracy of new clinical lab tests, developing performance models to help architects and engineers create safer buildings, supporting the critical measurement needs of America’s high-tech industries, or providing secure data encryption standards to safeguard the Nation’s information infrastructure, our broad-based expertise in the physical and computing sciences promotes technological innovation—the driving force for about 50 percent of U.S. economic growth and a key to national security.

    Through the Baldrige National Quality Program we have helped make quality a national priority and enhanced the competitiveness and productivity of U.S industry. Thousands of organizations of all sizes and in all sectors of the economy have benefited by using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence as the foundation for performance management and quality improvement programs.

    Through our Advanced Technology Program we reach out directly to industry’s entrepreneurs, accelerating the development of innovative new technologies strengthening the Nation’s industrial base and our economy.

    To make these impacts more concrete, Mr. Chairman, I would like to share with this committee a few examples of our accomplishments over the past year.

    As this committee is well aware, the NIST Laboratories are the oldest part of the agency and form the scientific and technical core that supports our wide-ranging services to the Nation’s industry, its scientific research community, and the government. Over the past year, NIST’s Laboratories have maintained their century-old tradition of excellence in support of the science and industry:

• Last summer, NIST researchers uncovered a potentially serious optical problem affecting designs for future generations of semiconductor manufacturing equipment that were already on the drawing board. State-of-the-art semiconductor lines use extremely short wavelength light –“deep ultraviolet”– in lithography machines to fabricate complex integrated circuits with features as small as 130- nanometers. Next-generation machines are expected to produce features as small as 70-nanometers, but NIST discovered that a key material used for the lenses in these machines has an unexpected optical property at the deep ultraviolet wavelengths that could cripple their ability to make tightly focused images. The timely warning from NIST has allowed the semiconductor industry to develop technical solutions to the problem and avoid costly design errors, potentially saving millions of dollars.

• In December, Commerce Secretary Don Evans approved Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 197 that made the Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, the official government encryption tool for protecting sensitive, unclassified information well into the 21st century. That announcement marked the successful conclusion of a four-year effort by computer scientists at NIST to identify a highly secure encryption algorithm to form the basis of the new standard, the successor to the aging Digital Encryption Standard. An international competition managed by NIST examined and tested candidate formulas probing for weaknesses. While developed for the government, the private sector also is expected to use AES to safeguard financial transactions and ensure privacy of digital information, from medical records and tax information to PIN numbers. The AES can help protect the Nation against terrorists, spies, criminals, and hackers. RSA Security, Inc., honored NIST with the RSA Award in Public Policy for making “a significant contribution to the application of cryptographic technologies towards the advancement of personal privacy, civil justice and basic human rights.” An economic impact study estimated that NIST’s involvement in developing encryption standards has saved private industry more than $1 billion.

• Last July, NIST researchers reported experiments on a new kind of atomic clock that has the potential to be up to 1,000 times more accurate than today’s best clock. The new clock is based on an energy transition in a single trapped mercury ion, and draws on NIST’s long history of research in trapping and cooling atoms and ions – work, incidentally, which has led to two Nobel prizes for NIST researchers. As this committee is aware, there are very practical reasons behind this single-minded pursuit of better clocks. Precise timekeeping underlies much of the structure of modern civilization, including navigation, electric power management and communications; it has made possible significant advances in astronomy and physics; and contributes to our ability to make precise measurements of length at the nanometer scale.

• Also last year, Research and Development Magazine recognized two recent NIST developments as among the 100 most innovative new technologies of the year –a device to help the blind access electronic books and the most accurate and precise analytical method yet for determining the mercury content of fossil fuels, as well as other industrial, environmental and clinical samples.

• Speaking of honors, this past December, the American Chemical Society designated NIST – the entire agency – as a National Historic Chemical Landmark. Their citation says it better than I could:

For one hundred years, scientists and engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly the National Bureau of Standards, have made broad-based and comprehensive contributions to chemical science and technology and to the economic strength and competitiveness of the United States. Through internationally recognized programs in materials characterization and standards, measurement, calibration, and synthesis – and in areas as diverse as cryogenics, weather prediction, solid state devices, and synthetic rubber – the National Institute of  Standards and Technology continues to demonstrate that the intelligent application of research in physical sciences to a wide range of societal challenges contributes to a higher quality of life for everyone.

• And, of course, I am very excited to recognize that last year we celebrated our second Nobel Laureate. NIST’s Eric A. Cornell and Carl E. Wieman of the University of Colorado at Boulder won the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics – along with Wolfgang Ketterle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – for their creation in 1995 of an entirely new state of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Cornell and Wieman are both fellows of JILA, a joint institute of NIST and CU. In creating a BEC, Cornell, Wieman and their associates also created a new branch of atomic physics that allows scientists to study the strange and extremely small world of quantum physics at a more human scale. In creating the BEC, Cornell and Wieman built on the work of NIST’s William Phillips, who shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics for his pioneering development of the science of using lasers to cool atoms to nearly absolute zero.

• The NIST Laboratories provide industry and the science and technology community with the measurement capabilities, standards, evaluated reference data, and test methods that together constitute the equivalent of a common language needed at nearly every stage of a technical activity. NIST provides standards-related information and assistance to about 20,000 organizations and individuals every year. A key measurement and standards function is the development and maintenance of accurate weights and measures that underpin about $4.5 trillion of retail and wholesale U.S. trade, enhance economic efficiency and lower costs.

• NIST develops and disseminates national standards for time and frequency to meet critical needs in telecommunications, transportation, and positioning (including support for the Global Positioning System). Each day, NIST receives more than 300 million automated requests for time over the Internet. NIST scientists also seek to discover and measure phenomena that provide the basis for new concepts in computing, information storage, and time keeping. NIST generates, evaluates, compiles, and disseminates fundamental data on the properties of atoms, molecules, and radiation—data needed for the detection of hazardous substances, environmental monitoring and remediation, and efficiency and safety improvements for products and activities ranging from vehicles to power generation.

• NIST provides national standards for the radioactive seeds used to treat prostate cancer, which strikes 180,000 men in the United States each year; for 11,000 U.S. mammography facilities, helping to assure the effectiveness of 26 million diagnostic mammograms annually; and for radioactive sources used in a promising research application to improve the efficacy of balloon angioplasty procedures. Each year, more than 1,600 researchers participate in studies at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, a world-class facility where unique instruments reveal the inner structure and dynamics of virtually any material.

• In FY 2001, NIST participated in 174 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) focusing on collaborative R&D efforts of mutual interest with for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations (including universities), public and private foundations, state and local governments, and individuals. Since 1988, NIST has signed more than 950 CRADAs.

    Mr. Chairman, if there is a single most important theme to our budget request for FY 2003, it is to strengthen the NIST Laboratories to ensure our continued ability to meet the Nation’s measurement, standards, and data needs. In the on-going war against terrorism, we are seeing clear evidence that technological superiority is changing the rules of war – in our favor. Technology also holds the key to meeting the Nation’s goals in ensuring homeland security and long-term economic growth. And technological innovation, Mr. Chairman, walks hand in hand with measurement science.

    I want to start out by emphasizing – indeed, I could not possibly over-emphasize – the critical importance of our request this year for funding for special instrumentation and the construction of research facilities. We are requesting:

• $35 million for instrumentation for the new Advanced Measurement Laboratory

    For the Nation to reap the benefits of this new facility, it must be outfitted with modern equipment and instrumentation. Ultimately, we will need about 40 major equipment systems. This $35 million would buy the first 15 systems so that the equipment will be in place as the building is occupied beginning next year. The new equipment will support industrial and scientific needs such as lithography at feature sizes of 100 nanometers and less; electron beam processing that can make even smaller feature sizes and can be used to make standards for nanotechnology; one-nanometer resolution comparisons of surface morphologies and crystal structures at low beam voltages; determination of the unit of mass in terms of quantum standards; and very precise measurements of electrical quantities.

    We also are requesting a total of $54.5 million in our construction budget, including two significant increases:

• $15 million for building fit-up and relocation for the AML

• $17.3 million for construction at the Boulder Laboratories

    Facility-related problems at the Boulder campus include severe temperature fluctuations and power interruptions that often threaten the quality of NIST data; power outages, spikes, and brownouts that damage sensitive equipment; and poor heating and air conditioning controls that have prevented the on-time delivery of specialized superconducting chips to defense contractors, instrument makers, and other NIST customers.

    Mr. Chairman, I recently asked the Boulder staff to give me a conservative estimate of the productivity impact caused by the deteriorating state of the facilities there- as an example, laboratory “down time” due to the loss of a critical computer or power supply because of power surges.  It costs NIST approximately $7.3 million per year in lost staff productivity, maintenance and repair of facilities and equipment just to keep up with deteriorating condition of the entire facilities.  Providing adequate funding to upgrade the Boulder Laboratories starts to pay back with an immediate boost in productivity, and should result in an immediate payback of the investment in less than 5 years.

    We have conducted thorough assessments of the situation and prepared a master facilities plan to guide the replacement, renovation, or repair of these buildings so that we can continue to provide the best possible services to our clients. The requested FY 2003 appropriation includes $11.8 million for the first phase of construction of a new central utility plant to supply filtered power, heating, and cooling to the laboratories; and $5.5 million for a new primary electrical service.

    Turning to our research agenda, for FY 2003 we are requesting $396.4 million for the NIST Laboratories. Besides the funding to begin instrumenting the AML, we have several other initiatives in our laboratories.

• $6 million to enhance the Center for Neutron Research

    Because of their unique properties, neutrons have become one of the essential measurement tools of materials science, biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. Low energy neutrons are used as probes to study atomic and molecular structure. They have a unique ability to illuminate the structures of large macromolecules such as polymers, composite materials, and biological molecules such as proteins; and they can probe magnetic structures, an application of particular interest to the electronics and semiconductor industries.

    Unfortunately, producing and using neutrons for measurement is highly complex and requires specialized – and expensive – facilities and skilled, experienced staff. The NIST Center for Neutron Research is at present the only U.S. neutron center competitive with facilities in Europe and Japan and is the most cost-effective such center in the world. We are proud of the Center’s record, but in a sense business has been too good. The use of neutrons for measurements in chemistry, materials science, biology, physics, and engineering has expanded into new areas unforeseen when the Center was designed. Over the past decade, the number of researchers using the NIST facility has more than quadrupled. In fact, although there are three other operating neutron research facilities in the U.S., all operated by the Department of Energy, almost the entire growth in neutron research in the U.S. over that period occurred at NIST.

    An Interagency Working Group under the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy has examined the status and needs of neutron research in the U.S. and is preparing a report to be issued shortly. One key finding of that report is that U.S. scientists are at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to their colleagues in Western Europe and Japan in this rapidly growing research area because of the relative lack of available facilities in the U.S.

    The $6 million increase we are requesting for FY 2003 will allow us to take some steps to meet this demand for what is a truly unique resource for U.S. science. NIST will build staff expertise for the development of new instruments and capabilities that will allow us to increase the number of users by a minimum of 25 percent, from approximately 1,750 to 2,300 per year, and strengthen key program areas, including:

• neutron trace analysis to develop new, ultrahigh-sensitivity methods to detect chemicals and other substances;

• neutron chemical spectroscopy to study details of interactions of chemicals with porous and layered materials; and

• neutron imaging to conduct two- and three-dimensional studies of materials, devices, and biological systems as well as studies of very large molecules such as proteins.

    NIST is playing a key role in enhancing the Nation’s ability to prevent and respond to terrorism. Through more than 75 projects, NIST is helping law enforcement, military, science, emergency services, information technology, airport and building security, and other personnel protect the American public from terrorist threats. Three initiatives for FY 2003, totaling $5 million, address additional issues in homeland security:

• Standards, Technology, and Practices for Buildings and Emergency Responders ($2 million)

• Current building design practices do not consider fire as a design condition or the consequences of injected fuels or other highly flammable materials. Architects, not engineers, specify fire protection in buildings, and the current testing standards are based on work carried out by NIST in the 1920s.

• Progressive collapse – the spread of failure by a chain reaction disproportionate to the triggering event – is an important issue being investigated in the WTC collapse and was responsible for the high number of deaths in the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Yet there are no U.S. standards, codes, and practices to assess and reduce this vulnerability.

• developing predictive models coupling fire dynamics and structural response to account for real fire environments, performance of the entire structure, and performance of connections and interactions,

• developing operational guidance for fire and emergency responders to improve mobility and help assure their safety during chemical and biological terrorist attacks, and

• providing cost-effective solutions to reduce building vulnerability based on a multi-hazard approach that exploits synergies in resisting extreme loads.

• Critical Information Technologies ($2 million)

    This $2 million increase for the Program for Accelerating Critical Information Technologies will support the development of networked systems of embedded devices (“EmNets”) to detect, prevent, and respond to natural and human-caused disasters. As computing device costs decline and capabilities increase, devices and sensors will be embedded in buildings, office spaces, manufacturing floors, transportation medians, and appliances and will be interconnected using wired or wireless networks. EmNets could offer enormous benefits to personnel responding to a disaster, providing substantial amounts of information in real time that could help to save lives and resources.

    As part of this program, NIST will work with emergency response organizations to develop an effective prototype implementation of emerging standards for EmNets with a focus on critical infrastructure protection for cybernetic building systems; develop EmNet technologies and testbed and simulation tools; accelerate the development of relevant critical application techniques such as structured data mining; and lay the groundwork for the development of appropriate “lightweight” cryptographic algorithms.

• Computer Security Expert Assist Team ($1 million)

    We are proposing initiatives to significantly strengthen our laboratory capabilities in two key areas for the Nation’s economy: nanotechnology and health care.

• Nanotechnology ($4 million)

    In some fields, such as semiconductor manufacturing, it is becoming an absolute necessity. Integrated circuits have been shrinking to the point today where nanoscale measurements are critical to further success. The difficulty inherent in making those measurements is impeding progress in semiconductor manufacturing.

    NIST is a partner in the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a coordinated effort of 10 federal agencies to advance nanoscience and facilitate its incorporation into a broad range of beneficial technologies. The FY 2002 budget for the National Nanotechnology Initiative is about $592 million, and the President’s request for FY 2003 is about $707 million.

    Against the backdrop of that investment – and of course a sizeable effort in private industry – NIST plays a relatively small but unique role. This new frontier of science and technology is critically dependant on accurate measurements. Advances in measurement science are needed to analyze phenomena, to control processes, and to turn discoveries into products.
Measurement, of course, is NIST’s special skill, and a relative small investment in measurement research at NIST is highly leveraged in its impact on the rest of the nanotechnology community. Or more simply put, you can not control what you can’t measure.

    This $4 million budget increase will be used to support the development of nanotechnologies in fields such as health care, semiconductors, information technology, national security, biotechnology, and magnetic data storage. Standard reference materials, data, and measurement systems developed by NIST for the nanoworld will enable the private sector to develop and commercialize innovative nanotech products.

• Health care ($3 million)

    These advanced technologies have the potential to significantly improve health care and lower costs, but turning them into marketable products and services requires advances in measurements, standards, and data to help ensure the accuracy of diagnoses, improve manufacturing efficiency and market acceptance, and hasten regulatory approval.

    To help meet this need, we are requesting an increase of $3 million to expand our measurement support in two particularly important areas:

• in vitro diagnostics (IVD), a field including devices used for laboratory analysis of specimens, such as glucose or cholesterol monitors. Of particular concern is a European Union (EU) directive that requires products sold by U.S. companies to meet certain requirements. For many of the potential devices covered by this directive, there are no national or international standards. We will work with the U.S. College of American Pathologists and EU counterparts to establish a program to harmonize the development of IVD standards and protect the interests of U.S. manufacturers.

• tissue engineering, a rapidly developing industry that creates products such as synthetic skin, prosthetic implants, and gene therapy. Further progress in this field will require measurements and standards to improve applications through better tissue typing, improved prosthetic materials, mechanisms to control the regeneration of tissues, and safe modification of genetic effects. Among other things, NIST will provide the standards needed to identify and sort different types of cells and verify their genetic health, and to establish procedures for producing and storing engineered tissues.

• Building Competence for Advanced Measurements Program ($4.7 million)

• the increasingly complex measurement needs of advanced industries,
• the shrinking time frames for technology development, and
• the rapidly escalating costs associated with advanced measurements research.

• Baldrige National Quality Program ($5.8 million)

    A partnership between NIST and the private sector, the Baldrige National Quality Award is an unqualified success story. In fact, an economic study released last fall by researchers from the University of North Carolina and Dartmouth College, estimated that the total economic benefits to the U.S. economy provided by the Baldrige program since its inception came to almost $25 billion. That is a benefit-to-cost ratio of 207 to 1. And the study inflates the cost of the program by assuming that we have to pay for time that is actually volunteered by industry executives.

    The Baldrige National Quality Program helps U.S. businesses and other organizations continuously improve their competitiveness and productivity by adopting performance and quality management practices. The program helps many types of companies and organizations deliver ever-improving value to customers, while improving overall organizational effectiveness. It creates a performance excellence standard that fosters communications and sharing in the private sector, building networks to deliver performance and quality management information and services and to share lessons learned with other economic sectors.

    Baldrige award applicants receive between 300 to 1,000 hours of review by at least six experts on the board of examiners, giving the applicants valuable insights. The experts provide a detailed feedback report on the organization’s strengths and opportunities for improvement. Since 1988, 41 organizations have received the Baldrige award, which is given in the categories of manufacturing, service, small business, education, and health care. Many thousands of organizations use the Baldrige criteria internally to assess and improve their performance.

    The proposed FY 2003 appropriation of $5.8 million will be used to manage the annual award competition, conduct a conference at which Baldrige award winners will share their performance excellence strategies, maintain a comprehensive database on state and local quality awards, and facilitate information sharing among all sectors of the U.S. economy.

    Our FY 2003 budget request includes two decreases from previous years. In both cases, these decreases reflect not so much a judgment on the effectiveness of the programs in question as the need to make hard – and prudent – fiscal choices in today’s budget environment.

• Advanced Technology Program (ATP) ($107.9 million)

    The program actively promotes partnerships among companies of all sizes, universities, and other organizations to undertake research that is too costly or risky for individual companies.

    And, indeed, it has had its share of successes. ATP-funded technologies have enabled industry to develop products and processes such as a new method for fabricating large, amorphous silicon devices for medical imaging systems that enable better and faster X-ray exams; a bench-top bioreactor capable of growing large amounts of human cells for cell replacement therapy; and prototype bridge beams made of fiber-reinforced polymer composites—lightweight, corrosion resistant, and less expensive to fabricate and install—that will improve bridge durability.

    The economically important field of “DNA chips” – ultra-miniaturized DNA analysis laboratories that are revolutionizing DNA research – owe much of their early technology to ATP projects.

    And just last June Discover Magazine awarded an ATP project one of its 2001 Innovation Awards for the development of the first commercially viable process for producing polymers from plant sugars – the first polymers derived from an annually renewable resource to compete head-to-head in the market with polymers made from coal or oil.

    More than 580 projects, including 185 joint ventures, have been announced since the inception of the ATP, involving a commitment of over $1.8 billion in NIST funds and $1.75 billion in private funds. More than 1,200 organizations have been involved as leads or formal participants, and another 1,200 as subcontractors. More than 160 universities have participated in 310 projects. More than 60 percent of all ATP-funded projects are led by small businesses.

    Despite its technical successes, and a strict selection process that makes awards on the basis of peer-reviewed competitions that considers the scientific and technical merit of each proposal and its potential benefits to the U.S. economy, the ATP has suffered from continuing controversy.

    Mindful of this history, and mindful too of the program’s potential benefits to the economy, the Secretary of Commerce has subjected the ATP to review of its mission, procedures, and design. Based on that review, Secretary Evans has proposed changes to the ATP to:

• make it more responsive to changing research and business environments,
• strengthen the program through increased interactions with the university research community,
• ensure that the program does not fund product development or marketing, and
• provide stability to the program’s funding.

    While the Congress is considering these changes, we are requesting that the ATP be funded at $107.9 million for FY 2003. When combined with carry-over funds from FY 2002, we anticipate this will allow the ATP to meet all of its obligations to on-going projects and permit an estimated additional $34.7 million in new awards next year.

• Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) ($12.9 million)

    The budget will continue NIST cost-share funding for two centers that are less than six years old and allow the MEP will focus on providing a central coordination role. The centers currently recover roughly one-third of their annual operating budgets of the centers through fees collected from client companies. Approximately another one-third of their operating budgets come from state and local funding.

    As part of this plan, the MEP will continue to pursue mechanisms that encourage and promote revenue generation to minimize the overall federal investment while ensuring that the mission of serving small manufacturers is not compromised.

    Mr. Chairman, the President’s requested budget for NIST for FY 2003 represents true stewardship of our resources. It required some difficult decisions, yes, but it takes a clear look at our Nation’s priorities for the coming year and marshals our talents, capabilities and means to the maximum effect.

    Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions the committee may have.