PANEL 1: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY NATIONAL LABORATORIES Mr. BRUCE. Our next panel will consist of Dr. Alexander Zucker, Acting Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Dr. Alan Schriesheim, Director of the Argonne National Laboratory; and, Dr. William Wiley, Director of the Pacific Northwest Laboratory. Gentlemen, welcome to the Subcommittee. We are certainly happy to have you here. We will start with Dr. Zucker and work right on down the table. Dr. Zucker, if you would give your testimony please. STATEMENT OF DR. ALEXANDER ZUCKER, ACTING DIRECTOR, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, OAK RIDGE, TN Dr. ZUCKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to submit my written testimony for the record and just cover a few points. Mr. BRUCE. Without objection. Dr. ZUCKER. First, let me comment on the Basic Energy Sciences budget. I would say that it is probably the best we can get. I don't think it is adequate, but under the circumstances I think it's probably the best we can get. There is, however, one glaring fault that particularly affects the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and that has to do with the funding of the Advanced Neutron Source. Last year this Subcommittee provided $7.2 million for this program. The Congress eventually passed that, and we are now faced with an Administration request of $3.7 million. This is no way to design a complex large machine that will be a pre-eminent research tool in the world. The reduction devastates a meticulously-planned engineering and design program, and if the funding goes up and down like a yoyo we will waste people and money, and actually spend more money in the end. To keep the project on track, we need $8.7 million, an addition to the $5 million to the Administration's request for fiscal year 1989. This is truly the minimum that will maintain the start of construction in fiscal year 1993. It grieves me that I will have to skip the technical highlights in my report. I would like to ask you to read them. I normally derive much pleasure in describing the work we have done, but I have other things that we have to talk about. Let me turn to the High Flux Isotope Reactor, and say that the Laboratory is grateful to this Committee for its support to get the HFIR restarted. Congress has provided the required funding and we have strong support to get it restarted both from the Department of Energy Headquarters and the Oak Ridge Operations staff. We have done a number of things since last April. First of all, we have installed a completely new team to run the reactors last April. We have developed an analysis of the pressure vessel that assures us that we have a 10-year lifetime. This analysis has been validated by a number of external committees. We have performed a hydrostatic test of the pressure vessel at approximately twice the operating pressure, and found no problems with the vessel at all. We have performed a Probabilistic Risk Assessment, a first for any reactor in the Department of Energy, which assures us through outside consultants that the risk to the community and to the staff of operating this reactor is minimal. We have done some seismic upgrading of the reactor, and in general, tightened up many aspects of its operation. I would like to say that the loss to science has been formidable; that the suspension of operation of the HFIR along with the Class B reactors has seriously impacted a large number of scientific enterprises, something that we can ill afford. As you know, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been in the forefront of technology transfer, and I would like to make a few comments before I close on global competitiveness and the role of National Laboratories in that arena. All of us are aware of the challenge to our commerce and to our economy by our inability to compete globally. This is particularly true and particularly hard to take in the sector that deals with high technology. Again, there is plenty of blame to go around. Industry can be blamed, Government, the scientific and technical establishment, our educational establishment-there's no problem finding culprits. I would like this afternoon, however, to be proactive and suggest ways that might reverse this process. First, I would like to digress. I would like to take us back to the colonial days in New England where each town, each settlement had developed a Commons. This was a substantial parcel of land used without charge by the town citizens to graze their cattle and sheep and cut wood for their housing and repair. The Commons was central to the prosperity of New England agriculture. The land was carefully tended and it produced much good for all the people who were associated with it. Today, technology is essential for the country's prosperity very much as agriculture was in those days, in the standard of living of its people. I would like to suggest then that we create a Technological Commons in DOE's National Laboratories where American industry can take advantage of what the American taxpayer has bought and what it is paying for. Industry would have to pay its way just as the colonial farmer had to buy his own cattle and sheep, but the use of the commons would be free. Industry could freely draw on the equipment, multi-disciplinary expertise, and the infrastructure of the Laboratories. Just as the colonial farmer drove his cow home each evening, American concerns would take home patents and data from their use of the Laboratories and would keep the necessary rights to them. Industrial consortia could, in many cases, leverage individual investments through cooperative arrangements. The Technological Commons, just as its colonial predecessor, does not take away property rights. On the contrary, it enriches all of its users and enables each to achieve what he could not possibly do with his own re sources. What needs to be done to further this kind of concept? First of all, I think that this Committee can help in establishing an explicit mission for the Department of Energy and for its Laboratories, an explicit mission to participate in our effort to be globally competitive. The second point has to do with funding. Of course, the Congress can provide funds and the Congress can provide tax legislation that would make this concept happen more readily. But we have to re member that the Stevenson-Wydler Act provides half a percent of R&D money already in the Laboratories for this activity, and because the global competitiveness has become so much more of an issue since 1980 when the Stevenson-Wydler Act was passed, I would suggest that the percentage be increased from the half percent to 1 percent. The Advisory Committee to the Department of Energy has reviewed the technology transfer programs at the Laboratories and has found that among other recommendations, that technology transfer must be planned for from the beginning of a number of research programs. I agree with that, but I would go further. I would require that a number of appropriate research programs be judged by how well they have planned for technology transfer and that this be part of the criteria for funding. I would just finally conclude, then, that we can find a common purpose to exploit the Technological Commons. Between the government, the private sector, the Department of Energy Laboratories, expand their objectives beyond their present mission to serve this Technological Commons that will enable the United States to take advantage of all of its resources and a quest for a better place in global commerce and technology. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Dr. Zucker follows:] DOE FY 1989 BUDGET AUTHORIZATION Alexander Zucker Acting Director Oak Ridge National Laboratory Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Energy Research and Development Committee on Science, Space, and Technology March 23, 1988 TESTIMONY SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY March 23, 1988 Good Afternoon. My name is Alexander Zucker. I am the Acting Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I am pleased and honored by your invitation to testify before the Subcommittee on Energy Research and Development. In your letter inviting me to testify, you ask me to address several specific questions and I do so in the order in which they were posed. FY 1989 Budget The FY 1989 budget for Basic Energy Sciences submitted by the administration is very tight but probably the best that can expected in these times of deficits and stringent budgeting. There is, however, in the proposed budget one glaring fault, and it happens to directly affect the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. As you know, we are in the process of performing R&D and engineering design studies for the Advanced Neutron Source (ANS). This is a meticulously planned and calculated process that will culminate with a request for a line item in 1992 and start of construction in 1993. Last year, this Subcommittee approved $7.2 million for the ANS design project, a sum that was in fact appropriated by the Congress. The Administration's request for FY 1989 includes $3.7 million for the ANS. This reduction would devastate our carefully |