You may recall that Senator John Ensign (R-NV) promised a hearing on high performance computing back in May while passing innovation legislation out of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. This morning the Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness held a hearing on high performance computing that Sen. Ensign, the subcommittee chair, and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) engaged in. Sen. Ensign acknowledged that he had little knowledge of high performance computing but asked questions and seemed very interested in what policies could help keep the US in a leadership position in the field. The seven witnesses all discussed the importance of high performance computing and the need for government funding to continue and increase to keep a competitive edge. Formal testimony is available online and a web cast should be available in a few days.
Everyone at the hearing tied the advances in high performance computing to Americas competitiveness. One example was when Michael Garrett of Boeing said that the companys ability to meet its performance goals was due, in part, to high performance computing and that had allowed it an edge over competitors in Europe. A couple of the witnesses put great emphasis on networking in high performance computing as opposed to hardware or even software. At the end of the meeting Sen. Ensign asked if Congress needs to direct NIH on how to spend money to get it to invest in high performance computing. Dr. Stanley Burt of the Advanced Biomedical Computing Center said Congress should do so and that collaboration and cross training of scientists is needed for the future of scientific research in biology using high performance computing. Burt said computational biology needs to get to the level that computational physics is currently at as a field.
…and they look pretty good! Better than we thought, certainly.
You’ll recall we worried that the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative would face problems in the Senate due to the need to pay for cuts to NOAA and NASA in the President’s budget. But the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee marked up their bill today (link doesn’t render on my Mac, however) and managed to get NOAA $1.1 billion more than the House included in their bill, and about $126 million more for NASA, without carving it out of the other science agencies. NSF and NIST managed to make it out of the markup with significant increases still intact. I haven’t seen the mark yet, so I don’t know all the details. But the short story appears to be that NIST will get its requested level and NSF gets almost everything requested — about $29 million shy of the request, actually — but still a healthy increase of $410 million over FY 06.
Here’s the detail the committee’s released so far (comparisons to the House bill in parentheses):
- NIST: $764 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (vs. $627 million in the House bill) — $11.9 million above the FY06 enacted level and $182 million above the budget request. $106 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) (vs. $92 million in the House). No mention of ATP funding (zeroed in the House). It’s not clear how much of that $764 million would go to the NIST Labs, but considering the House included the full $104 million called for in the ACI in their smaller allocation, odds are decent that NIST Labs will actually receive their requested funding.
- NSF: $5.99 billion for National Science Foundation: $410 million above the FY06 enacted level; $29 million less than the House bill.
- NOAA: $4.43 billion for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (vs. $3.4 billion in the House bill): $536 million above the FY06 enacted level, excluding supplemental appropriations, and $753 million above the budget request.
- NASA: $16.8 billion for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (vs. $16.7 billion in the House): $126 million above the FY06 enacted level.
If these numbers survive the full committee markup — scheduled for Thursday — and then again on the Senate floor, then NSF and NIST (and likely DOE Office of Science, when it gets its turn in the Energy and Water bill) will just about be assured of getting nearly the level of increase called for by the President back in January. The only possible monkey wrenches at that point — at least that I can see — would be Presidential veto (unlikely) or some sort of appropriations meltdown that would lead to another across-the-board cut as happened last year. Even then, it’s hard to imagine an across-the-board cut stunting much of the growth NSF, NIST and DOE SC should experience as a result of these appropriations.
Further good news is a recent indication from OMB that the out-year increases for ACI called for in the President’s FY07 budget are likely to be realized, at least in the next budget (FY 08) — meaning the Administration doesn’t see ACI as a one-shot deal; it’s committed to a multi-year increase for these agencies.
So, we’re in pretty good shape at the moment (knocking on wood).
Of course, we’ll have more details as they come available….
CRA is a member of the Coalition for National Science Funding — an organization comprising over 100 different scientific societies, universities, and industrial advocates for federal support of fundamental research. As part of their advocacy efforts, CNSF sponsors a “Hill Visits Day,” which is an opportunity for members of the research community to come to Washington and chat with Members of Congress and their staff about the importance of the federal role in supporting long-term research.
CNSF will hold its second annual Hill Visits Day on September 13, 2006 with orientation on September 12. CRA invites researchers from its member institutions to take part.
With President Bush’s introduction of the American Competitiveness Initiative calling for a doubling of federal support for fundamental research in the physical sciences, computing, mathematics and engineering over the next 10 years, and the House of Representatives endorsement of that plan, the opportunity for seeing significant increases at agencies important to our community — NSF, DOE Office of Science, and NIST, in particular — is better than at any time in recent memory. But it’s important that Congress continue to hear from researchers about the importance of sustained support for research.
CNSF Hill Visits Day presents the unique opportunity for the research community to speak with one voice. Participating in CNSF Hill Visits Day gives us the opportunity to make our case again to Congress, but to do so as part of a larger and multidisciplinary group with even greater impact.
A CNSF subcommittee will create interdisciplinary teams of visitors and make all the appointments, so if you would like to participate, please contact Melissa Norr at mnorr@cra.org by August 16 with your name and full contact information.
For more information please visit our previous blog postings and the CNSF web site.
To join the Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) sign up here.
From the CCC Blog
- DARPA Issues PERFECT Solicitation Erwin Gianchandani
- Microsoft Announces New Policy-Focused Internship Program Erwin Gianchandani
- NAE Elects its Class of 2012 Erwin Gianchandani
- NIST to Fund Pilot Projects Advancing Trusted Identities Erwin Gianchandani