Transcripts For CSPAN3 Energy Secretary Rick Perry Testifies On Research Development 20240714

Oversight of the department of Energy Research and development enterprise. Welcome, mr. Secretary. Were delighted youre here today. This committee has jurisdiction over the department of energys vitally important science and Energy Research and development activities. The laboratories and facilities so i hope we see you much more frequently from now on, and i look forward to working with you throughout this congress. With the budget season mostly behind us, id like to bring just a few minutes and a few items to your attention. Ill start with the good news which is that despite the administrations best effort to make draconian cuts across the board to deo research and Development Programs, most actually fared well in the house of representatives. Im particularly pleased to see the increases to the budget for arpae and the long Programs Office both of which have yielded truly transformative results for Energy Technologies of all types. Im also quite happy that the house supported a substantial increase in the International Fusion project which i advocated for as well. I went to visit that project a couple years ago, and practically everybody over there was a texan. It is crucial that we honor our commitment to this project and ensure that we are providing the support for the department of energy itself, identified would be necessary to maintain its construction schedule and minimize its total cost to u. S. Taxpayers. The completion and operation of this project will have substantial contributions to what we know as Fusion Energy today. If successful, this project could be a huge game changer in the Energy Future of not only our nation but for humanity as a whole. Now for the bad news. Yet again it is extremely disheartening that quite frankly disturbing to see the dramatic cuts laid out in administrations Budget Proposal. I know that you must think i sound like a broken record, mr. Secretary, because we had this same conversation last year. But unfortunately, it is necessary until the administration stops producing these shortsighted proposals and deploys a thorough thought for process for developing its budget requests. Im thankful for your enthusiastic report of all these programs, mr. Secretary, but enthusiasm alone is really not enough for the American People. We need to see constructive forwardlooking Budget Proposals being submitted to congress. Moving beyond the budget, we are here today to allow our members to ask questions pertaining to all research and Development Programs within the entire department. As the title of this hearing suggests. Constituents from member districts on both sides of the aisle benefit greatly from these programs and we believe its our duty to ensure the responsible use of their tax dollars. Many of these programs havent been authorized in many years. However, in some cases we hope to create more thoughtful Bipartisan Legislation this congress to support the important science and Energy Research stewarded by the department, and we want to work with you in that effort. With that, id like to thank you again for being here, mr. Secretary, and i look forward to a productive discussion this morning. Our Ranking Member is not present, but we have a wellknown texan sitting in for him. Now i recognize mr. Webber. Thank you, chairwoman johnson for hosting this hearing and welcome to our fellow texas statesmen, governor, secretary rick perry. We appreciate him being here. As weve heard from the chairwoman, the department of energy and secretary perry have proposed a budget that requests cuts to programs that have traditionally received bipartisan support from this committee. Id like to remind my colleagues on both sides of the aisle two important facts. Number one, the Budget Proposal is just that. A proposal. We the members of congress are the ones tasked with actually setting the funding levels after hearing from important witnesses like secretary perry today. Second, i want to stress that we will have tough decisions to make on the doe budget. We do not have unlimited funds and we cannot fund every project no matter how worthy. Critical programs must be prioritized, and we have to make smart targeted investments that give the american taxpayer the best bang for their buck year after year. And at the department of energy, there is an incredible range of programs for us to review. This committees jurisdiction includes all of d. O. E. s civilian research, including over 10 billion in research, development, demonstration and commercial application programs as well as the departments 17 National Labs. This amount incredibly totals onethird of the department of energys budget. Onethird of the budget. Mr. Secretary, i dont have to tell you that you lead an incredible department quite well, i might add with a long history of Major Research achievements. Over the past 70 years, Research Conducted at the National Labs has led to monumental achievements in medicine, manufacturing, computing as well as the development of Innovative Energy technology. Each national lab has made invaluable contributions to the United States scientific progress and they have showed basic Science Research is the most effective way to encourage innovation. Addition additionally, does user facilities provide our nations researchers with the most cutting edge tools of modern science like advanced light sources, particle accelerates and the two fastest supercomputers in the world. Each year approximately 22,000 researchers from academia and the private sector used doe facilities to perform new Scientific Research and to develop new technologies. Here at home d. O. E. Heads most federally sponsored research in physical sciences. Internationally the United States through the departments work is the world leader in basic Science Research and technological development. But other countries like china are making significant investments in basic research. Threatening americas global standing as the leader in scientific knowledge. Without the departments continued investment in basic and early stage research, the u. S. Is in danger of losing its Global Technology edge. By investing wisely in this research, the department can achieve its goal of scientific discovery and Technological Breakthroughs for future generations. Doe must also invest in the researchen infrastructure that brings the best scientists in the world to the United States. I look forward to hearing from secretary perry about implementation of legislation that was signed into law last congress. Including doe research, the National Quantum Initiative Act and others. The department of energy must prioritize the kind of groundbreaking basic research authorized in these bills over grants for technology that is ready for commercial deployment. When the government tries to push developed technology into the market, it wastes limited resources in competition with private investors. When basic research is the priority, everyone that has opportunity to access the fundamental knowledge that can lead to the development of future technologies. I want to say thanks again to secretary perry for taking the time to be here today. And i yield the balance of my time. Thank you. Thank you very much. If there are members to wish to submit additional Opening Statements, they will be added to the record at this point. At this point id like to introduce our witness, rick perry currently serves as the United States 14th secretary of energy. He oversees the department of energy tasked with advancing national, economic and Energy Security of the United States. Promoting scientific and technological innovation in support of that mission, and ensuring the environmental cleanup in the National Nuclear weapons complex. Prior to his current cabinet post he was elected Lieutenant Governor of texas in 1998 and later served as governor from 2000 to 2015. He was the longest serving governor in texas history. Not to tell my age, but ive known this gentleman since he was a young man serving in texas. So now im going to yield to you have another statement . Okay. No. Im good. Okay. Im going to ask our secretary to make his Opening Statements and then well proceed with questions. Mr. Perry. Thank you for your kind remarks. Our years in grade School Together were great. And were just out of college, for the record. Thank you. And Ranking Member webber, its my great pleasure to be in front of you and your row, and thank you for your friendship and your wise counsel through the years as i can say to a number of the members that are out there. Governor crist its always a pleasure to be in front of a colleague. As we were making remarks behind colleague. As we were making remarks behind the door there that life after governor is good, and so thank you for your friendship and assistance through the years. Its a pleasure to be in front of each of you members today, and to share with you my observations about the president s 2020 budget, and his budget request as Ranking Member webber so succinctly described it appropriately for the department of energy. If i may, to further highlight some of the great work that were doing, theres just a very short video here that id like to ask you to enjoy with me. And it actually has volume, too. Its kind of a new thing were working on over at the agency to get some volume with our video. Basically what im saying here is we do some pretty good Pioneer Nuclear safety modeling. Assisted in the shell gas revolution, the l. E. D. Revolution. And for those of you arent awake secretary of energy remains the coolest job ive ever had. Thats due to the incredibly brilliant and dedicated people at our National Labs. Theyve had an Astonishing Impact across the nation and literally around the world. Over the years our scientists and engineers, theyve decoded dna. Theyve helped kick start the development of the internet. Brought Safe Drinking Water to multitudes. Pioneered Nuclear Safety modeling. Assisted in the shell gas revolution. The l. E. D. Revolution, and powered spacecraft to other planets. Weve done all that and much more and were just getting started. Now im especially excited about the potential of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Our National Labs are already home to the fastest supercomputers in the world and we can use them, and our nextgeneration exoscale and quantum machines to accelerate americas a. I. Capabilities. A. I. Is already being used to optimize Grid Security, increase our Energy Efficiency among a host of other energyrelated applications. Its also being used to reduce traffic jams and strengthen cyber security. Predict extreme weather and improve Emergency Response and develop cures for cancer and traumatic brain injury. Yet im absolutely convinced were just scratching the surface of our capabilities. And im convinced more than ever through our advances in science, innovation in technology, we can make a worldchanging impact at dod. Thank you for the privilege to be able to show that to you. As you can see, it is really exciting time to be at the helm of d. O. E. And i appeared before this Committee Last year, and i committed to fulfill a number of goals including protecting our Critical Energy infrastructure from cyber threats, investing in early stage cuttingedge research and development and advancing our leadership, exoscale and quantum computing. Im proud to report to you that d. O. E. Has made progress in every one of those areas. This past fall i fulfilled a commitment to visit all 17 of our National Labs, and i got to witness firsthand, as you saw in the video, the brilliant work that those incredible facilities are engaged in. Youll have the opportunity to see examples at National Lab Day july the 24th. Its going to be right up here in your backyard on the hill, and i hope youll consider coming by. Our National Labs are homes to as randy shared with you, the two fastest supercomputers in the world. Five of the ten fastest supercomputers in the world. And we got nextgeneration, if you will, exoscale computers that are coming online in the very near future to accelerate americas capacity and capabilities in the Artificial Intelligence world. This is really important. Its important in a host of Different Reasons which well expound on here during the course of this committee meeting. But i am completely and absolutely convinced the impact that this is going to have on the world that we live in, not just in the area of the energy as we commonly think about it, but a broad array of scienceoriented, sciencecentric areas. Unfortunately, the success of our National Labs has also made them a target. A target for people and nations seeking to steal americas ingenuity. In response, were requiring d. O. E. Employees to fully disclose their involvement in Foreign Government talent recruitment programs that are sponsored by countries of risk. You know, you all know who those are. Iran and china and russia, north korea. And weve banned our researchers from joining chinese talent recruitment programs. I happen to think these are common sense approaches, alex. These are things that we should be doing. And they will better protect our National Security in advanced research and technology. In the coming weeks and months, i look forward to working with all of you at the department as we work on these programs that we talked about, our shared programs, dr. Dabbar, i thank you, madam chair, for your kindness, your hospitality and longtime friendship. Thank you. Thank you very much. At this point, well begin our first round of questions and the chair recognizes herself for the first round. Madam sorry, mr. Secretary, do you stand by the proposal of the elimination of author e. , or is ive heard you make some very positive statements. We are concerned about the futu future. Its been a positive program, and our Appropriations Committee just recommended a fair amount of funding. Yes, maam. Give us a little bit of how you stand on yes, maam. Madam chair, im going to give you a backwards look and then im going to give you a forwards look, if i may. My backwards look is to my previous position of being the governor of the state of texas and the work we did there while randy was a member of the texas legislature. We worked together on some really exciting successful Public Private partnerships, texas enterprise fund. Texas technology fund. And those basically were mini arp aes, if you will. A little different in some instances. But when you think of cuttingedge technology, the dollars we expend in that arena, our desire to Bring Technology and then commercialize it, thats what arpae from my perspective historically has been about. And i respect ombs work and what they do. Ill be real honest with you, i respect this congress more. And i understand how the process works. And i think Ranking Member webber was spot on when he reminded us that this is a starting point. And its, you know, its a starting point and we recognize that. So Going Forward, just like i said in other Committee Hearings previously, i respect this process. I understand how this process works fairly well. And were going to expend the dollars and hopefully very wisely and thoughtfully and efficiently that Congress Appropriates. So as you all have historically said, we like arpae. We want it to be run efficiently. Effectively, be wise about it. But we hear the message here. Previous congress sent a clear message about what they think arpae needs to be. I hope you see a reflection of your desire for this program to go forward and to expend these dollars thoughtfully with the result of programs that are making for a Better Future for this country. Well, thank you. Have you had dialogue with some stake holders as to whether or not they would continue to invest in these programs without support, or has there been the opportunity for that dialogue . Yes. Yes, madam chair, there has. That dialogue with stakeholders. As a matter of fact, the timeliness of your question is succinct here today. D. O. E. Is going to be announcing our 2019 Technology Commercialization fund project selections and theres 77 different projects and theyre going to be matched with funds from the private sector. As a matter of fact, i think theres about seven of you on this committee. Congressman beyer, your district is one of those thats going to be seeing one of those. Congressman lamb, perlmutter, mcadams, governor crist, your areas will have funding for projects. So to lengthen the answer just a little bit more, madam chair, those conversations are theyre almost continual because of the work thats going on at our National Labs, the focus of the department when it comes to im a big believer in a personal and professional way that Public Private partnerships are very, very good for commercializing technology that is developed in our National Labs. Well, thank you very much. My times expired. Ill now recognize mr. Weber. Thank you, madam chair. Im glad to hear, mr. Secretary, that youre going to have National Lab Day on july 24th in honor of Charlie Crists birthday. Happy birthday early. Thats exactly why i picked that date, governor. I didnt realize he had that kind of pull, you know. Secretary perry, as you know, the president signed by bill, the Nuclear Energy innovation capabilities act, into law last fall. And while ive been pleased to see the department take some important steps in implementing this legislation, such as announcing the mission need for the versatile fast test reactor which is authorized in the bill, we really heard kind of little from the department about the rest of the bill. So talking about the budget specifically, i was kind of disappointed to see that fiscal year 2020 budget requests did not include funding for the National Reactor Innovation Center which was included in the budget request. And just by way of notes, this Innovation Center is critical to the development of advanced reactors, and will allow those private companies you were talking about to prove their reactor designs without having to endure the lengthy nrc licensing process. And its also my understanding that the department of defense, d. D. O. D, is interested in the funding and through this program. My question is how did we not get that into the budget . Whats your thoughts on that process . One of the things im going to do, if i may, madam chair, is im going to ask for undersecretary b dabbar to share a little bit of his observation here. Hes head of our science shop. All our National Labs are under him and what have you. But congressman weber, before we do that, i just want to say that we think some of the most Exciting Research thats being done at the department is dealing with small modular reactors, the advanced reactors that are out there. We got two privatesector companies were working incredibly close with. We got a piece on land on Idaho National lab property where were going to be, you know, building this out and seeing some Real Progress made on this. And we think that not only from a commercialization aspect of being able to deliver emissionsfree power, its also going to be very, very important tool to nonproliferation with these small modular reactors. So if i may, could i get paul dabbar sure, very quickly because di do have a question. Sure. The versatile test reactor, part of the legislation wed like to thank this committee for passing, were moving down that process to identify where to actually place it. At which of the National Labs, as you can probably guess, we have more than one interest from a national lab director about where to place it. Were in the middle of that process and obviously, were looking forward to placing it in one of the labs. It has a long history which we have several of of Nuclear Power. Good. Thank you. Ill take that to mean that you really dont know what the cost is going to be, how much to put on the budget, but we do need to focus on that. Let me go to question two. Fy 2020 budget request includes a 161 million cut to the Fusion Energy sciences program. And as a result proposes 108 million in the u. S. Contributions to the project which is the worldleading International Research collaboration in Fusion Energy that in the past has received strong and continued bipartisan support from this very committee. This funding level is just over onethird of what is required in fiscal year 2020 to maintain the u. S. Commitment to participate. So my question, is the department recommending that we withdraw from the program . Its hard to square this fusion budget which would make the u. S. Responsible for delaying the project and increasing the overall costs with maintaining our international commitment. Are we thinking of withdrawing from the idir project . How can we expect other countries to make investments like the long baseline facility if we dont keep our commitments overseas . Yes, sir. Congressman, you know the history of this, and it really got sideways back when i showed up here in the spring of 2017. Idir was in pretty dire straits. It had poor management. There was not the type of results that i think any of us were comfortable with. Subsequently, they have a new executive director in there thats doing some really good work. We have regained our confidence. I went and was on the ground there to see, to talk, to interact, with the folks there in the south of france where this facility is. We have become convinced that they are making the right kind of progress. Were doing more inkind contribution on the cylanoid coming out of california rather than direct appropriations but with that said, 107 million request for 2020 is sufficient to maintain the progress on some of the highestpriority u. S. Hardware contributions that were making. So to answer your question, specifically, we are recommending that we continue to be engaged with this. Cautiously optimistic that when we roll back in here for the next budget cycle that well be able to even have better evidence of progress that theyre making. I appreciate that, mr. Secretary. Its no surprise to me that you focused and were already on top of it. I appreciate it. Again, i think think its important. I think we want to continue that commitment as much as we possibly can. Im over my time. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Miss lofgren . Thank you. And thank you, mr. Secretary, for being here. Following up on congressman webers focus on Fusion Energy, i wanted to mention the National Ignition facility at the Lawrence Livermore national lab which is the Worlds Largest laser run by the National Nuclear security administration. Its the premier facility within the United States for High Energy Density and confinement fusion research. I was concerned that the budget from the administration was low. However, the House Administration committee has provided level funding. I just would throw this caution out. When we lowball the in the budget, it does have an impact on morale among the scientists even though, and this is not the first time this happened, it happened under the Prior Administration as well, where the request is low. Congress gets level funding, but it has an impact thats not positive on the morale of the workforce. So just for the future. Id like to ask about the Energy Research and innovation act which the president signed last fall. Theres a provision in there which directs you to establish and support an r d program in initial fusion for energy applications. There was a clear recommendation in the National Academys record which highlighted several Promising Research areas to explore with the enormous clean Energy Potential of inertial Fusion Energy concepts. These are the areas that the weapons stockpile Stewardship Program would never pursue because its really not their bailiwick, but the Research Needs are quite different. What is the status of the departments implementation of this now statutory direction to establish and support an inertial Energy Program . Id like to have, again, paul dabbar share a little more detail on that specific side. Thank you. Congresswoman, were very much focused on seeing commercial fusion move forward. Weve been very enthusiastic about the private sector also working with us increasingly so including congressman bara. Where he went to university at irving which is trielfa energy. In inertial confinement, theres a company that came out of technology from livermore and los alamos called general fusion. Its approaching this from an inertia confinement point of view. Weve accelerated our work with the Public Sector including that inertial confinement company. We look forward to advancing the technology as well as others. So thats the departments r d program is basically just private sector . No. No, congresswoman. Most of it is the science area. But what weve seen is that there has been a growth in the private sector also. Which is good. Yeah. And so and theyve brought theres over a billion dollars of private sector money which has been raised and one of them is in inertial confinement. Were engaged in a number of programs to engage with them amongst others. I wonder if i could ask this. Could you follow up this hearing with a more detailed in writing report on kind of the status of implementing this statute, where we are, next steps and the like . This is enormously important to the committee on both sides of the aisle and really to our country and the world. I would very much appreciate that if you could do that. Ms. Lofgren, let me just add to that, that i certainly i dont think im out of line here in inviting you to go take a look at one or both of the private sector efforts that are going on. Tae, which is down in i guess is that the inland empire . Is that right, dr. Bara . Orange county. Orange county. Its in irvine. Its not inertial, though. Its interesting. Theres fascinating work. I worked at general atomics and what theyre doing and that side of it. And then at idaho National Labs, some of the work thats going on there. And i think youre next door to Lawrence Livermore. Correct. And with that light source there, its theres some its down the road. We understand that, but investments that were making today we may look back on 20 years from now and say, well done. Ill just note, thank you for your enthusiasm for the National Labs. Its really important. And i think if we put the kind of focus on this area of research that we should, well get there a lot sooner. Weve never adequately funded the science on it. I thank you, mr. Secretary, and my time is expired. Thank you, very much. Mr. Posy. Thank you, madam chair, for holding this hearing. Thank you for appearing, mr. Secretary, over here. About half the people in this room are old enough to remember the fuel crisis, the Energy Crisis of 1973, where everybody in the world that everybody in the country that wanted to get gas had to get in line on a odd number of tag days in florida and wait for hours to get a half tank of gas. It brought everything to a screeching stop. And in response to which Congress Passed and president carter signed the act in 1977 which created the department of energy to make sure we would never ever again be victims of such an Energy Crisis, and i commend you for reaching the current point that were at now, an unprecedented level of energy independence. So thank you for a job welldone. You and the administration. I was very happy to see your references to space in your video presentation. Ultimately the exploration of space is about the survival of the human species, and exploring the unknown to expand our knowledge. Last year the house science space and Technology Committee worked together to pass hr 589, a bipartisan department of energy reauthorization bill which is now law, and as you know, part of the legislation directs the department to carry out a program on lowdose Radiation Research within the office of science which is going to be necessary to better understand for the future of human space life. And so i just wondered if you could give us a little bit of an update on the status of the plan to implement the program, and if not, you can mail it to me. Thank you, congressman posey. That focus on the partnering between d. O. E. And other agencies of government, in this case nasa, is its one of the more fascinating things we do, particularly developing the ways to propel us to deep space. Theres going to be work thats done and small moderate reactors may be part of the tiein here to the propulsion on some of these, but the other side of it is theres a program thats i think its called crusty, and i actually i got to see the work that theyre doing on it at the Nevada Test Site a few months back, and crusty is an acronym for kilowatt reactor using sterling technology, and los alamos is actually where the works being done. They were just showing it to us out at the test site in nevada. And its their partnering, its just like you see Public Private partnerships and you see nasa, d. O. E. , dod, particularly through darpa working together on some of these projects. The National Labs partner up often. Los alamos and the y12 National Security complex, and then the National Security, i always call it the Nevada Test Site. Thats not the proper name, but the nevada National Security site are where theyre building and testing these full scale flight prototypes for Nuclear Reactors, and by the were going to get back into space. Were going to go very far into space. Its going to be driven by funding that you all are making available through these National Labs. So, thank you. Thank you, madam chair, i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Beyer . Thank you, madam chairwoman. Secretary perry, thank you for being here. I just wanted to follow up on a conversation we had a year ago when you were here regarding the Budget Hearing and the one, two, three Nuclear Agreement with saudi arabia. You know, at that time there were negotiations taking place, and i think in your comments there was some hesitation of moving forward without the one, two, three, agreement and for the record the Atomic Energy act of 1954 requires a Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement which is the one, two, three agreement for exportive nuclear commodities. Earlier you approved transfer of certain nuclear Energy Technologies to saudi arabia, and while that authorization doesnt require the one, two, three, agreement be in place, part of the approval process requires us to consider whether the transfer of these technologies are in the best interest of the United States which is what the one, two, three agreement typically symbolizes. And let me put it in context. My other committee is the house of Foreign Affairs committee. Obviously were very concerned about the tensions in the region. We know recently we obviously pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal in recent days, the Iranian Regime has talked about increasing their Nuclear Production and potentially restarting their Nuclear Program. Last year the saudi crowned prince on 60 minutes suggested that if iran were to pursue Nuclear Weapons, they would be within their rights to pursue Nuclear Weapons as well. I think all of the members of this committee, certainly when were thinking about the United States interests, would be very concerned about seeing a Nuclear Arms Race take off in the middle east in one of the most unstable parts of the world. So both in my role as kachairma of the subcommittee on oversight for Foreign Affairs as well as my role as vice chair, could you give us an update on where we are with Saudi Nuclear sales . Thank you. I think you very succinctly for all of us described why its so important for the United States to continue to be engaged in that process. If you really care about nonproliferation, if you care about peace in the middle east, if you will, and its and in its broadest context, the United States being involved, being engaged, continuing to have a discussion and a negotiation going on, not just with saudi arabia but with all the folks that we can bring to the table on this, wherever they may be, i think its important from a just an edification process, theres been some misinformation out there, from my perspective, on the part a10, and just what does this mean . And this isnt some blessing that were basically saying, you know, heres the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, and take this information, do as you will with it and what have you. An 810 the signing off on part 810 simply says its okay to go have a conversation. Its okay to start this conversation with the u. S. Technology company dealing with Civil Nuclear and your you and dont necessarily have to have a one, two, three agreement in place to do that. Thailands a great example of a country that we have signed part a10s with and theres other misinformation about there about this information, somehow or other its a secret. Its not. Now, some of it is proprietary, and previous administrations have made that proprietary information off the books, so to speak, appropriately, but we tried to be we got a reading room where folks can take a look at it and were working with members of congress that are really interested in this and want to see whats going on as well. Great, thank you. Yes, sir. I would just emphasize, again, given the tensions in the region, this is a complicated issue. I would still push for that one, two, three agreement. Absolutely. And i understand theres the competing interests of the russians and the chinese and the saudis could pivot and go in that direction. If theyre serious about this, if they want to be a serious player in the world, weve got the best technology, the Safest Technology and the best companies. They shouldnt go in that direction. And i made this statement to the leadership of the kingdom that if you want to send a message to the world that youre really serious and want to be adult members of the world community, you need to sign a very strong one, two, three agreement with the United States. Great. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Biggs. Thank you, chairwoman johnson and Ranking Member lucas. I appreciate you conducting the hearing today even though its randy weber sitting in. And will the gentleman yield . I will not yield to you, sir. I thank you, secretary perry, for joining us today. And i congratulate you, secretary perry, on the excellent job youre doing at the department of energy. I think its amazing to see what a regulatory agenda coupled with progrowth can do to benefit our economy. Im encouraged by the administrations commitment to a longterm strategy for viable and competitive Nuclear Energy. And to developing the necessary infrastructure to meet our Nations Energy needs. Nuclear energy is particularly important to my home state of arizona where nearly 30 of the states electricity comes from Nuclear Energy. Years under public service, the Largest Electric company in the state serves 2. 7 Million People and operates the generating station which produces more than 70 of the states clean energy. The palaverde Nuclear Power plant is americas largest source of Clean Air Energy providing over 2,500 jobs and generates an Economic Impact of more than 2 billion. All while emitting no Greenhouse Gases. Secretary perry, you visited arizona in february where you stated that President Trump is focused on having a Diverse Energy portfolio that includes Nuclear Energy. Were glad that you came out im personally glad you came to arizona to see what were doing there. You also stated that America Needs to continue to be engaged in the development of the next generation of Nuclear Power. And so, mr. Secretary, im wondering if you would please elaborate on the departments efforts related to the development of the next generation of Nuclear Power. Mr. Biggs, thank you. The the advanced Reactor Technologies Program is what youre making reference to, and were doing the r d on that as we speak to address the longterm technical barriers that we have and smrs is part of this. And i think from my perspective, increased funding for microreactors. And microreactors, this is particularly of interest to the dod. As they as we live in this world, i know were going to talk about resiliency at some point in time today of the grid and whats going on. But, mr. Waltz, from a military standpoint, having these microreactors, even smaller than our smrs, to develop the power in some of our military operations, is going to be tantamount to our ability to perform the National Security mission that we have. Were continuing, and ill talk with some specificity here we, the d. O. E. , is continuing to support the development of new scale power. Thats their efforts to complete the licensing process and begin to commercialize the design and build associated with the supply chain that theyre going to need. The commercial deployment of those reactors and thats happening at the Idaho National lab outside of idaho falls, and 2026 is the projected timeframe on that. So we know look, the key for us is were going to have to have lower capital costs to build the Nuclear Plants. I mean, thats we all recognize that with the challenges that the Civil Nuclear program has got. Reducing the schedule times and the costs that go into building those. We need to be focussed on the supply chain, keeping it in the United States, and the components that are fabricated by u. S. Companies for this. And, again, getting back to when were able to do that, madam chair, were going to be able to send the message that, number one, our Energy Supply is going to be harder to disrupt so whether its a cyber attack, whether its a natural dissas e dissaster, all of that is going to be directly affected by these advanced reactors and the development of those so, mr. Secretary, with regard to that, we talked about private enterprise and their role in this. How do you incentivize the private sector to participate in this and accelerate the science with this . I think one of the fastest ways to incentivize the private sector is for government to get out of the way from a regulatory standpoint, from a cost standpoint. Both i dont want anybody to walk away thinking that i have left somehow my understanding of how states function. States have to be very engaged in this process as well. And state governments not be an impediment to the development of these technologies as well. For that matter, states not being impediments to the development of all the above energy development. I would suggest one of the best ways to send a message that we want you to invest is to make sure either by permitting or regulatory we create more of a hurdle for these companies to be able to bring their product to the market. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much. Ms. Bonamici . Thank you to the Ranking Member and thank you secretary perry for being here. Last year i asked you about exocomputing and quantum computing. Id like to start my questions on the existential threat of Climate Change and the departments efforts to transition to clean energy. Mr. Secretary, the Fourth National Climate Assessment makes clear Greenhouse Gas emissions from human activities are the most substantial factor in Global Warming over the past six decades. The department of energy is one of the departments that contributed to the assessment. So, secretary perry, did the department of energy sign off on the findings of the Fourth National Climate Assessment . Im going to make it easy. This is a yes or no question. Because i want to get yes. To several questions. They did. Okay. Do you agree that the National Climate assessment is the result of collaborative peerreviewed effort across federal agencies compiled by the nations top scientists . Again, thats yes or no. Yes. And according to the assessment, fossil fuel combustion accounts for 77 of our nations total Greenhouse Gas emissions. Do you agree with this finding in the assessment . Yeah. I senator, that one ive gotten to the point of i know youre reading it off. I mean, youre reading a Technical Report. If thats what the Technical Report says, im heres what i will share with you. That the climates changing. Mans having an impact. And as ive stated before, i welcome a thoughtful conversation with anyone on how we can clean up the environment. You know, no matter which side of the aisle you may be on here. What were focused on at the department is coming up with new innovation, new technology, that will help us address this issue of the climate. I appreciate that, mr. Secretary. I have some more questions. Im going to ask you about that. So the assessment also identified without a rabid decarbonization of the Worlds Energy systems over the next few decades, it is unlikely that well be able to reach the 2 degree celsius warming target that was set in the paris climate accord. Do you agree with that finding in the assessment as well . Heres what id like to do. I know you got a lot of questions you want to ask me that are yes or no. Id really like to get paul dabbar to share with you what the head of the International Energy agency said within the last 30 days of the decarbonization of the planet. I would like you to submit that for the record. Okay. This is your time here today. Also last year, mr. Secretary, last year the Natural Resources Defense Council sent a letter to this committee outlining the failure of the department of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy or eere, to spend the funds that were appropriated by congress in fiscal year 2018. So the president s fiscal year 2020 budget requests outlines the administrations plans to reprogram 353 million and prior year balances from eere to help pay for fiscal year 2020 programs. The impoundment control act requires the administration to obligate funds when Congress Appropriates money to the executive branch. Last year, this committee learned through a gao request from chairwoman johnson that the administration violated the impoundment control act in 2017 by withholding onethird of the budget for arpae. You can answer why were concerned about the same issue occurring at eere. So the impoundment control act does allow agencies to withhold obligations of funds when a deferral is requested by the president or approved by congress. Secretary perry, are you aware of any deferrals or rescissions congress has approved for fiscal year 2018 or 2019 funding for d. O. E. Programings . I am not. How do the total number of announcements compare to the number of announcements issued in fiscal year 18 to date . You want to take mr. Secretary, this is your youre the witness here today. Id like you to answer the question. Im going to refer to my expert, then, if you mind, maam. We issued all the them and theyre in the middle of submit reviews. Will you recommit today to distributing d. O. E. s appropriating funds for 2019 and 2020 in accordance with congressional intent . Yes. I appreciate that. Thank you very much, madam chairwoman. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Secretary, for being here. Its good to see you. Its great to have a texan heading up the department of energy. Thank you. I want to thank you first for your thoughtful written report. I found it personally refreshing, actually, that we had a comprehensive report that sought to recognize the security challenges facing us and recognize the break throughs tht we need to make for advancement but also kept in mind were supposed to be, as the chair said, responsibly use the taxpayers dollar. While we do want to make sure d. O. E. Employees morale is high, we should also make sure the taxpayers morale is high, with 22 hanging around their neck, i think most of us realize their morale is not as high as it should be. I represent, of course, the 27th district of texas. Hau thank you for your work in helping the port of corpus christi. Seeing the first shiple coment g out of the United States from that port is great for the United States as were making a transition to an energydominant nation which youve been so key in. Home to the south Texas Electric generating station. Were committed to americas leadership in Nuclear Energy to help deliver clean, reliable, power to the people of texas and across the country. Much of americas existing fleet of reactors is aging with many of their Nuclear Plants nearing the end of their 40year license. The department of energys researching ways to promote the longevity and safety of Nuclear Plants through its light water reactor sustainability program. The Program Works with universities and Companies Like stp, south texas project, on research. Could you provide an update on the work being conducted through the lwrs program . You want to you know which one that is . If i could, lets take that one for the record. Okay. And get you the proper information and give it to you and the rest of the Committee Members in writing. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. Your written report touched on Rare Earth Minerals and, you know, theres a lot of talk about alternative forms of energy have an allabove approach. Could you discuss what d. O. E. Might be doing in terms of Rare Earth Minerals . We know china controls 70 of them. We look to alternative forms of energy, as were becoming a energydominant nation, thats finally independent, in energy, we dont want to trade that for dependence on Rare Earth Minerals. Rare Earth Minerals has, as your report mentions, extreme National Security, military obligations and those sorts of things. And i think thats very succinct that we i want to stop and draw a line right there and say that thats looking backwards. And some of the innovation and technology that is going on at the department at this particular point in time may shed some light on that dealing with Rare Earth Minerals that are controlled by maybe some countries that dont necessarily have our best interest in mind may not be as big a challenge as what we we thought it was 12 months ago. And part of that reason is because of the research that is going on at our National Labs. And im going to, again, ask paul to share with you, just because hes fresh out of seeing some of this and has to do with the Battery Storage. And the progress being made on Battery Storage is really fascinating. And ive always said that Battery Storage is the holy grail. If were able to get to that point where we can use our renewables, solar and wind in particular to power these batteries that have longtime storage, and what were finding now is that the elements that are being used to create some of these batteries are not Rare Earth Minerals. And theyre elements that we have right here in the United States. So were going to be in control of our future substantially more on the Battery Storage. Paul, if you give them a little glimpse of whats going on here, i think thats pretty exciting stuff. So, a couple of examples, obviously, the complex to a large degree, a very large r d business. So in this particular area, for example, in batteries that are not lithium ion, beyond lithium ion batteries that not only have tremendous improvements in performance, three to five times, but are made out of elements as the secretary said that we dont have to source it from places where we have more of a challenge. The second thing, as an example, that we did with the support of this committee is the recycling battery announcement that we made at Argon National lab where we announced the First Research for recycling batteries so the materials that you were talking about that have to be potentially sourced from other places in the world were looking at with all these batteries being used and the economy now, how we could reuse those rather than needing to source that from other locations. Very good. Thank you. You mentioned on the electric grid, and i think in 2017, you produced a the d. O. E. Produced a report on listing recommendations that we should do to prepare for an emp attack. Do you know of any progress thats been made . Yes, sir. A substantial amount of it. In april of this year, we d. O. E. Issued a 35 million cyb cyb cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems Research sale excuse me, Research Call to the federally funded research and development centers. And theyre working exactly on what youre talking about there, the resiliency, the reliability of the nations Energy Infrastructure and theyre looking at a host of different ways to, you know, we actually stood up an office we referred to as caesar cybersecurity and the Emergency Response that is headed up and so, again, thank you for the funding of that. I think it is very timely. And in the previous that i talk about this 35 million is going to be used for testing that can be used to verify and validate Operational Technology equipment, software, and there is also funding opportunity announcement that was released in the month prior in march to establish a cyber manufacturing institute. And that ones comanaged by our Caesar Office and eere to mitigate cybersecurity threats. So there is a lot of movement in that space. The d. O. E. , our National Labs, and our private sector partners are all engaged i think in a very constructive way to send a message to our citizens, to those that operate our electric and Power Systems that were doing Everything Possible to protect them against both cyber threats, physical threats, and national or natural disasters as well. In florida, you know, your governor is about to do an announcement on infrastructure resiliency and what have you. Our two states have, you know, from time to time we get more natural disasters than wed really like to have, but how we build that infrastructure and how we develop that resiliency of the grid is very, very important. Not just because the cyber side of this that, you know, ten years ago, that wasnt a problem. It is today. Thank you very much. Mr. Mcnerney. Well, i thank the chair. I thank the secretary for coming today. I do want to say, i worked at National Laboratories in albuquerque, worked at the National Renewable laboratory. We have more labs outside of my district. Im well aware of the quality and quantity of labs. I encourage you to support those labs as much as you possibly can. Secretary perry, do you believe that research on Climate Science is needed or do you think the Climate Science is settled . Well, i think were continuing to add to the body of science thats out there. You think its we need to continue to work on that. What makes the d. O. E. Labs uniquely qualified among National Science agencies that conduct research on climate . Well, partly because we historically have been engaged in it. So when you go back and look at the history of Climate Science, d. O. E. And their scientists have been involved with it, there is a foa out right now, congressman, that is going to its a selection that d. O. E. Issued yesterday on climate modeling. And i think this is just another example of how d. O. E. s role in the Predictive Modeling of whats going on in the environment, these severe storms that were seeing mr. Secretary, i know youre not intentionally filibustering yeah, no, im just excited about the i am, too. Whats going on at d. O. E. I strongly urge you to continue to double down on climate research, including climate intervention research. Were going to have to have those tools available. Secretary perry, one way to make energy from renewable sources that are remote available to load Centers Across the country is to Better Connect them with what we call interconnection seams. The national Renewable Energy laboratory completed a study on this, however the Committee Staff has informed me that the release of the report that contains findings from this study has been delayed without explanation and the authors have been told not to discuss it publicly. Are you aware that the limits have been placed on the authors in discussing results of this study publicly and whether the limits remain in place today . Im not. Okay. So will you make commitment to make this publicly this report available . Yes, sir. Well circle back and find out where that originated from. And make it right. Thank you, secretary. Sure. Appreciate that. In april of 2018, the d. O. E. Canceled a 46 million funding opportunity announcement on solar r d. Just days before the winners were to be announced. Can you or anyone on your staff explain why that was pulled at the last minute . Well go research it, sir, and get back to you. I appreciate that. I appreciate, also, your comments on Artificial Intelligence. Mr. Olson and i are cochairs of the Artificial Intelligence caucus and were going to continue to pursue that subject with vigor. I know the National Labs have a lot to offer on that. I urge you to keep the labs well funded and keep the morale high at those labs by not threatening their funding year after year. With that, im going to yield back. Thank you. Im going to yield back to the three minutes that the prior speaker took. Thank you very much, mr. Olson. I thank the chair. Howdy, secretary perry. Dont go over your time, pete. Never my intention. I want to start off, sir, with something thats very important to ft. Bend county, a town called meadville, texas. I want to give you a personal invitation from a young texas lady we both know and admire. Her name is katie vossic. Yep. You remember you met here at President Trumps first speech before congress. Yep. She fell out of a live oak tree, broke her spine, has not walked for three years. As you can see now, shes a fellow aggie. Proud aggie. And she wants to thank you personally for meeting with her and inspiring her to get moving forward and going to college station. So on her behalf, maybe find some time to come down to meadville, texas, the jay cafe had the best chicken fried steak and pecan pie of all of texas. And maybe pop over to the power plant right across the way from meadville. If you have time, come down, id love to have you come down. You dont even have to use the extra bait of chicken fried steak to get me there. Thank you. A question, very important, sugarland, texas, involves the nnsa. As you know, the nnsa picks up some waste used by industry and then disposes of it. They send out to a site called the waste isolation pilot plant, the wipp. Radioactive 241 is needed for safe drilling. This is a Nuclear Waste. It is a known carcinogen. Usually what happens, nnsa picks it up, sends it off for safe storage somewhere in america, but theres a very small amount of that mineral that is picked up by nnsa but cant be kept here because it came from foreign sources originally. Its identical fuel. Identical. We cant dispose of it because it came from another country. And so we have these sites all across our country now, right now, sprinkled with this radioactive waste. One site, secretary perry, is half a mile from my sons high school, ft. Bend christian. In 2015 they had a small release of cesium 137. Workers took that home on their clothes. I would like to change the law to make sure we dispose of this carcinogen without regard where it came from. So are you aware of this, and how can we help you to make this common sense dispose, dispose, dispose, and not delay . Yes, sir. Congressman olson, we are familiar with this. And what i apologize for turning my back to you and asking a question. But, because i wanted to make sure that i was correct in the assumption that i was making that this is going to require a statutory change in what you just mentioned and we will assist you any way we can from the standpoint of using science at the labs or what have you, to back up because i agree with you that these types of materials do need to be put in appropriate disposal places and so the idea that just because it was produced in a foreign country versus the exact same element that is produced at a National Labs reactor for these isotopes that we use in medical and obviously for the oil and gas industry, but we agree that the statute needs to be changed. It is the old land use act that prohibits any foreign produced elements of being placed in like the whip. We would support your effort there and anything we can do from a scientific standpoint to back that up, consider it available. It sounds look i have to call the ball, three down, clear to land. This is our job, not your job. Youre on it. Ai, we are the cochairs of the house ai caucus. Your video was awesome. It shows the potential future of ai. Can you discuss ais potential for protecting our grid, protecting our pipeline, protecting our National Labs. This is the future. How are you doing that . I cant do it briefly. It is just such a broad and but i think some time in the future, let me just leave it at this, i dont think there is a field that the government is participating in that has any more potential to have bigger impact on our citizens than Artificial Intelligence. The Super Computers that the department operates, five of the fastest, that we operate, and we are our next level computers are going to be operating the computer coming online at argon over at mr. Fosters district. In 2021 will do a billion, billion transactions per second. Thats the speed of which anywhere between i think it is up to 50 times faster than the computers we have today. It is fascinating work so ai, Machine Learning, coming with that. Were going to find answers to challenges that we had no idea we were going to be able to address in the very near future. Thank you. Final question, beat alabama. I yield back. Thank you very much. Miss horn. Thank you, madam chairwoman. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. I want to start off by framing this that issues of workforce development, s. T. E. M. , building our workforce of tomorrow as well as the Cutting Edge Technology development are all very important, both to me and my district and clearly energy is a big issue in oklahoma as it is across the country. So i want to start with the funding. I think we have to have a conversation about the role of technology development. And in its ten year history, they have funded high risk, high reward Energy Innovation projects that create cleaner energy and Economic Growth. The important thing about that of the 145 projects that have been supported by rpe, they have attracted 2. 9 billion in follow on funding, follow on private sector funding and 76 of these projects have gone on to form new companies. I say that to ask in the proposed budget, it basically zeros out rpe. In the balance of Public Private partnerships, were looking at the Cutting Edge Development of Government Investment leading to follow on actual companies and Economic Growth and development. My question is, what are you doing as secretary of energy to communicate the clear successes that this program has had to the president and his budget team . Mostly sitting in front of committees like this, defending what rpe has historically done. I will continue to do that. I recognize it from time to time were not always on the same page as the hymn book. And this is one of those. I hope youve raised that. It is such an important way to encourage that Economic Growth and development by investing in cutting edge. Now, turning for a moment to cybersecurity and manufacturing, which are also topics that are critical and im i think we need to talk about, the manufacturing usa program, you probably know, a network of advanced Manufacturing Technology areas that have the goal of establishing American Leadership and manufacturing. And with respect to cybersecurity, which is absolutely critical in high tech manufacturing, the manufacturing times digital or mdx, a program funded by the department of defense is focused on improving cybersecurity and digital manufacturing and that is their focus and on march 26th of this year, your department announced a 70 million award for cybersecurity for a new manufacturing usa institute. So, secretary, my question is why the duplication of effort in those projects which are basically the same and have you encouraged your staff and the d. O. E. To work with. Dod because this is very important but in terms of streamlining our programs and not duplicating effort, why the duplication here . Congresswoman horn, may i ask paul dabbar to weigh in here a second . I think he may be able to enlighten up a little better than me telling you. We work with undersecretary griffin in charge of research at dod quite a bit and our other peers at nasa and nsf and the others. We each focus on different areas to be direct dod focuses on lethality applications. The department of energy is more about energy and science. And so there is different applications for different aspects. Dod, for example, does not focus on cybersecurity for the grid. They focus on cybersecurity for what they do. So there is a lot of similarities, a lot of overlap and their lab research and our lab research, but there is some very practical points of research that are different, hard to fully get into here today. So, just a quick followup on that. Did you coordinate with the dod to build the scope of this program to not overlap or overlapping of the manufacturing . Because it is a whole new institute, thats my question. It is a whole new institute. Are there not other ways this could be coordinated . For this particular institute im not certain if there was a discussion, specifically with undersecretary griffins scope. But we do it all the time with him, across quantum, around ai, around hypersonics. This particular one i cant answer. We can follow up with you on that. I would appreciate that. And i yield back the balance. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much. Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, madam chair. And secretary perry for being here today. One of the challenges i think we always face in this committee is connecting our basic research, which i think is absolutely critical to the future of our nation, to every day constituent issues and things that folks on the ground are feeling on a day to day basis. And kind of with that in mind, especially when were talking about things like quantum computing and ai and big data, these are important buzzwords, how do we connect it to the day to day. And one of the big issues across our country and in my district is the issue of veteran suicides. The number that has been most widely circulated is 20 veteran suicides a day. I know that the d. O. E. And the va have engaged in a partnership to solve just that with the use of some of our technology. My colleague mr. Norman has introduced legislation to reauthorize that partnership. And i guess i would like to just turn it over to you, just to hear from your perspective how is the partnership working, what are you working on specifically with respect to the va. And how can we do even better . Thank you. Thank you for your serious passion about this issue. Probably every one of us in here, this isnt just about veterans, this is about our kids, about our colleagues, it is about the citizens of this country and you and i talked about this, congressman mcnerney talked about it, the importance of what we potentially have in front of us now because of the breakthroughs that were seeing in the partnerships that are being created between historically disparate agencies of government. Nobody ever thought d. O. E. Was supposed to be involved in traumatic brain injury or pts post Traumatic Stress or cte and what we are showing people is that we have a real role to play in this. We may have one of the most important roles to play because of that computing capacity that we have. And the ability for us to partner with the va in the sense of working with the va. The data that they have and they know they can trust us, no offense to maybe some of the private sector folks who have Big Computers and what have you, but im pretty sure that the va and those veterans know that they can trust the department of energy not to allow this information to be used for some other purpose. So we are going to continue to look for ways to you all have funded a lineitem at the d. O. E. Now if im correct in that. And to this program is funding it is a partnership. If i may. University of california san francisco, dr. Jeffrey manly out there, finding some just really big breakthroughs dealing with brain science. So this is important work. Fantastic. And as you may also be aware, i recently joined my colleagues on this committee to introduce the bipartisan securing American Science and Technology Act which is designed to improve our ability to protect federally funded research from espionage, cyberattack and theft. I think it is a huge issue. Well invest in our technology. We want to make darn sure that nobody is here stealing it. And so i applaud your efforts on the Talent Program and, again, i was hoping you could provide an update on what the policy is and how you see it evolving Going Forward. Could i ask . Absolutely. The first thing we just as the secretary mentioned, his opening was to ban people working in the national lab complex to work for foreign Talent Programs from china, russia, north korea, iran and so well be giving people who are currently employed in the live complex working for the Chinese State as being cohired. Thats no longer going to be allowed, and they have to make a decision of working for them or working for us. By the way, this is very consistent with the cutting edge universities where a lot of universities around this country are beginning to realize this is a conflict of interest for them. So were very consistent with what the University Systems are looking at. The second thing that were looking at is whether we should be developing a list of technologies that were developing in the National Labs and whether that list should be included, before we do any work with anyone from the four countries, we have an extra review. This would not be a ban but would be an extra review for Key Technology like quantum, new generation of batteries and so on. Fantastic. My final comment, i would encourage to think i think of the innovation space, there is a funding component and talent component and other components, but not only should we be about making sure that folks arent playing for both sides, but how do we attract even more great talent here to the u. S. . And with that, i yield back. The gentleman yields back. The chairman recognizes himself for five minutes. Thank you for joining us this morning. The agency has many daunting challenges before it and very timely. Great to have you here. Every year the epa publishes data on economy wide Greenhouse Gas emissions. In 2017 the transportation sector was the highest emitting sector, but not too far behind it at 22 of u. S. Emissions was industry. Emissions are expected to grow in the near term. Many industrial processes are considered to be difficult to decarbonize without Cost Effective alternatives. Despite over one half of our economys Climate Emissions coming from transportation and manufacturing, the majority of our federal r d spending at d. O. E. Focuses on reducing ecommissions from the electricity sector. These are critical and Worthy Investments. I believe d. O. E. Must support innovation and cleaner energy, not just cleaner electricity. Will you agree that d. O. E. Can help to develop cost competitive technologies that reduce the again house gas emissions out there. While ensuring that Domestic Energy intensive manufacturers continue to be leaders in innovation and remain globally pet competitive . Yes, sir. And i think our labs are engaged in some of those efforts as well. The nonpoint source pollution issue, while i was the governor of texas, i had the opportunity to work with and put into place some programs, did it exactly that, big fleet, engines, for instance, the terp program, congressman weber, if youll remember, that was a reduction in emissions from old inefficient fleet type engines and we gave a tax credit and, again, this wasnt on the innovation and the technology side, which is what dod does, but it is a maybe it is an idea that those of you in congress could take a look at from the standpoint, give us some incentives to states, to implement programs like this. But we will continue to look for ways to im really proud of what the us has done from the standpoint of reducing emissions. Were leading the world. A lot of that is because of we were swinging back up. But i think thats a most of my folks at the department tell me that is a temporary bump back up and, again, as we transition, i think it is important for us to go, where i can go sell american lng into the european theater, remove old inefficient coal burning plants for cleaner burning lng, thats good all the way around. If i can get the indians and the chinese to recognize that, well be making some progress in the world. Do that at the common table. There are Many Technology options we can explore to decarbonize manufacturing. This includes cogeneration, combined heat and power and waste heat to power, which can greatly improve Energy Efficiency at our industrial facilities. Mr. Secretary, is supporting greater adoption of cogeneration a priority for the department . I dont know whether i put it as a priority. It is one of the areas we care about. Just like over in congressman webers district there is a i think in your district, the petro nova facility is. It is in mr. Holeson, but innovation and technology is the key to, you know, again, i dont want to back track here, but 15 years ago, they told us we found all the Energy Resources we had in this country and they were wrong because innovators in technology and i will suggest that the innovation and technology is going to be found through the Artificial Intelligence and the Machine Learning that we have the power to control at the department of energy because of the funding by this committee. Cogeneration is critical. Will that solve challenges with process emissions. Other advancements may be necessary. And i understand that the office of fossil energy has done substantive work in developing this technology. And while ccs is not yet Cost Effective in power generation, i believe it will be necessary for certain industrial applications. What will you do to encourage collaborations to leverage existing resources and programs to ensure that ccs for industrial purposes are being given proper consideration . I have made that one a priority. Up to and including in the Clean Energy Ministerial, we got cces put in as a priority at a global level, at the Clean Energy Ministerial that was initially held in china in this last year in vancouver. So were making not just progress here in the United States, were seeing some global saluting of the flag by our partners around the globe. I would suggest it needs to be applied to industrial emissions. With that, i have exhausted my time and i will now recognize representative baird for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair, thank you, mr. Secretary, for being here. We do appreciate the Research Funding that you mentioned in your initial comments. Your department has an office of science which funds the bioEnergy Research centers and they conduct coordinated research in support of developing a viable and sustainable domestic biofuel and bioproducts industry from dedicated bioenergy crops. So each vrc is led by a d. O. E. National laboratory or leading a u. S. Research university and staffed by multiple disciplinary stake holders in science, engineering and industry. So as a scientist and former, i support the biofuels and bioproducts industry. And im particularly interested in the research and development that can diversify these industries and that helps them to produce more products while lowering costs and reducing the Environmental Impact. My question is what do you see in physical year 2020 and beyond to support bioEnergy Research centers and to expand their Important Research . Mr. Baird, we are very supportive of these bioEnergy Research centers and each of them are led by doe lab. Or Top University in partnership. Theyre designed to lay out scientific ground work for new biobased economy. And ill give you an example, maybe someone in your district, the following senators are selected, based on an open competition. Great lakes bioresearch center, thats up in madison, and theyre partnering with michigan state. There is another Oak Ridge National lab, another one at Berkeley National lab, there is a center for bioenergy and bioproducts innovation and thats at the university of illinois urbana at champagne. So i think there has been over 2,500 peer review publications out of that, a thousand plus invention disclosures that came out of it from your return on investment, i think it has been pretty good, sir. I have one other question. That deals with looking at another area. Now my colleague, mr. Gonzalez, made reference to the Veterans Administration. I recently cosponsored legislation with representative west to prioritize opioid research. I know youve indicated the use of the d. O. E. Super computing capacity to tackle the big data challenges often in the health care space. Would you mind elaborating again on what kind of role you think the d. O. E. Might play in helping the federal Health Care Agencies including the Veterans Administration . To better understand the Opioid Crisis. The good news is were making some good progress. Back mid200s, 06, 07, being the governor of texas, i had the opportunity to go to Brooks Army Medical center more regular than i like to be going to young men and women who are burned and then at that particular point in time we saw our federal government being rather liberal. In the dispensing of opioids and, you know, half a dozen years later we figure out we basically created a whole generation of young people who are dependent on these things and we started pulling back from. And this is probably three or four years ago. They had decreased by 90 the amount of opioids they were giving to young people coming in and dealing coming up with some different ways to deal with it. With that said, we still got a real Opioid Crisis in this country. We think it may be genetically driven. The Super Computers and our ability to do genetic testing of some of these populations out there, and, again, doing it in a way that the people know that this information is going to be safe and secure, department of energy will play a very vital role in being a partner working with nih, working with the va, working with some of our private sector partners and our University Systems to, i think we will find a solution to the Opioid Epidemic we have in this country and well this will happen, my projection is this will happen sooner rather than later. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, secretary perry. I want to tell you how much i enjoyed being able having the privilege of escorting you around the two crown jewels of the National Laboratory system, Argon National laboratory and and i think there was a slide that was going to be put up here in a moment. If we can bring the screen down, please. This is one of the many hats i wear as cochair, we plan to be visiting all 17 of the National Laboratories and leading as large a congressional delegation as i can corral. Were going to be heading to the new mexico National Labs los alamos, sandia, white sands and the trinity test site where the First Nuclear weapon was detonated about 75 years ago now. The northwest one in the bay area where they will be hosts of a visit to the bay area labs, livermore. Ill be hosting the illinois lab, a visit to the illinois labs at Argon National lab that i represent and which, by the way, one of the things that they have done at their light source is to use them to directly image the molecules that are involved in opioid receptors in the brain. This research allows us to directly image the molecules involved in opioid addiction. One of the wonderful things that are often not talked about. And the lab where i worked for 23 years before i got into this insane business. Were also later on, Congressman Ed Perlmutter will host a visit to the denver area and western labs. And at times to be scheduled and also the two republican cochairs will be hosting visits to oak ridge and savannah by chuck fleischmann. We already had our first visit to which where chairman lamb has invited us to go see metal. I understand why you enjoyed visiting the 17 labs. It is essential that the entire congress recognizes the importance of these. Any opportunity for paul dabbar or you to join these, youre more than welcome. In my remaining time, i would like to discuss the issue of low and high enriched uranium. This comes in many guises. You mentioned the work, we signed a letter where the navy was trying to discourage congress from pursuing something that is pursued for quite a while now, to encourage the navy to use to look at the possibility of using low enriched uranium and propulsion reactors. Just would like to emphasize the reason that 30 nobel Prize Winners have signed a letter advocating the minimization of low enriched uranium. There is a reason we dont test Nuclear Weapons. If we did, our Nuclear Arsenal would be safer, cheaper, more secure, more reliable. If the rest of the world followed us in that example, it would be a National Security disaster. The situation is identical for low enriched and high enriched uranium. If we start using high enriched uranium in applications where it is not strictly needed and the rest of the world follows us, things like propulsion reactors, the things they have the right to do under the nonproliferation treaty it will be a disaster for nonproliferation and National Security because any country that has a reactor worth of high enriched uranium has everything they need in terms of fissile material to make multiple Nuclear Weapons. We worked as a country for 40 years minimizing the use of this and we will continue to engage with you to make sure every time we have the option that we choose the safe one and not use weapons grade. We communicated on this and well be continuing. I have a grand total of 23 seconds left. I guess i just want to see how you view after having visited, you completed the 17 labs, what are the what are the things you would like to get done organizationally that will really improve their effectiveness . Let me add, i dont know if i would make any changes to the structure that we have. I think these labs i got some pretty good advice from former secretary, former governor of new mexico bill richardson. He said, perry, dont mess with the National Labs. And that frankly is some pretty good advice. For the record, i would like to invite all of you to come out to your neck of the woods in october of this year for an exlab event that we have in which we bring in the private sector that are partnering with the National Labs on a host of different areas. It is some fascinating stuff. And, again, we dont have time for me to put on my cheerleader hat and talk about these National Labs, but whether youve got one in your district or not, if you have the opportunity to go to a national lab, please do it. It is some of the most brilliant capable men and women making, i think, more difference in america than any single group of people in this country. Thank you. Youve been a wonderful ambassador to science. To an administration that makes that not always an easy job. Thank you so much. Let me just say, the timeliness of that exlab event and argon in october is on Artificial Intelligence. Thank you very much. Mr. Balderson . Thank you, madam chair, thank you mr. Secretary for being here this morning. Mr. Secretary, approximately 25 of my district in ohio is rural. For my constituents to access the quality education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics is critical. Many of the job openings that cannot be filled in rural ohio are s. T. E. M. Focused. As secretary of energy, what are you doing this year and what will be done in fiscal year 2020 to ensure that the departments s. T. E. M. Outreach and engagement activities reach the Rural Communities . One of the areas were focused is on the department d. O. E. s office of Economic Impact and diversity. And the program is created to expand the participation of individuals who historically may not have had the same opportunities. I can speak a little bit of historically to this. I grew up in a place, my high school, well, my school, grades one through 12, had 115 kids. I probably wouldnt be sitting here if front of you if i went to a larger school. I could have learned how to use a slide rule and done a little better in organic chemistry and i would have ended up being a veterinarian. Organic chemistry changed my life. Made a pilot out of me. Enough of my personal travails. The point is that a lot of these Rural Communities dont have have historically had access to some of the science technology, engineering and math programs that children really need to be successful in this program is exactly focused on that. Undersecretary of science paul dabbar and our chief commercialization officer are currently working with our National Labs, again, and the university of chicago, to do a round table this summer to explore some pathways and continue to harness these kids with this technology. And were im pretty excited, weve got a program called making nuclear cool again at the department. Were reaching out and helping to, again, when i was going to college, being a Nuclear Engineer was a pretty cool thing. It lost a lot of its shine if you will, so, again, whether it is small modern reactors, whether it is the microreactors were talking about, bringing the Nuclear Energy interest back into that area and preparing young people to be the scientists and technicians were going to need, going to require the s. T. E. M. Programs and durl america absolutely does not need to be overlooked any longer. Thank you very much for that answer. My final question is im honored to be the lead republican cosponsor of congresswoman stevens bill, the American Manufacturing leadership act, the bill passed on this Committee Last month and underscores my support for making Strategic Investments in advance manufacturing, r d. Mr. Secretary, if this Bipartisan Legislation was enacted and the department had the ability to open an Additional Center of manufacturing innovation, what manufacturing challenges would you look to research . There is a host of areas that advance manufacturing is making, housing. You think about secretary carson actually had on the mall, i think within the last 30 days some manufacturing housing and, you know, we talked about where im from, manufactured housing generally was on wheels. Thats not the case anymore. Because of our added Manufacturing Processes that we have today, were able to build some housing that is highly efficient, that is cheaper. Substantially. Advanced manufacturing in places that you dont historically think about, automotives, were literally building a Nuclear Reactor and the parts for the Nuclear Reactor out of Additive Manufacturing. It is stunning the progress being made in that arena. Advanced Manufacturing Office is, you know, obviously got our attention and it is another of those priorities that we have. Thank you very much. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much. Mr. Beyer. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. D. O. E. Has robust programs that have helped demonstrate Carbon Capture technology. Ethanol plant, Hydrogen Production facility, on a coal fire power plant, but were enjoying this explosion of natural gas, the shale gas revolution. What is d. O. E. Doing for Carbon Capture on natural gas plants and on other things like cement manufacturing . Yes, sir. As i said, i wont rehash this again, but we focused on one of the first projects i went to as secretary was the petro nova plant outside of houston, i think in ft. Bend county. And were 90 plus percent of the emissions are captured. Theyre then sent over to be used in an enhanced Oil Recovery Process and oil field i think 80 miles away outside of victoria, texas. What kind of plant is petro nova . It is a coalpowered plant. So those are those were not building new ones, were closing the old ones down. What are we doing with the natural gas plants . Paul, you want to take a mr. So this is one of the most exciting things that paul, if i could focus on the secretary, thanks. If you dont know, mr. Secretary, ill move on. Heres what im interested. Im interested in trying to pass on information the best i can to you. And if i dont have the what is timely, id like to get to paul. He gets more into that area than i do. We have greater access to paul. We can do it for the record. I hope you have good access to me. All you got to do is call. The National Academy pointed out we need negative emissions technology, pulling carbon out of the air, the ocean, what is how is the National Academys assessment been received by the department of energy and what do you have to do with the negative energy . Let me give you a little statement to that i think i found really interesting. Baro, i dont think there is anybody ive been dealing withes that a better handle on this is nonpolitical as he looks at the facts and what have you. And he said if we eliminate 100 of the passenger cars that are running on gasoline today, transition every one of them to electric, we would still need 81 of the oil and Gas Production that is occurring in the world to be able to continue on developing, manufacturing, running our fleet engines and what have you. So we know we have got we got some real challenges here from the standpoint of how are we going to deal with the folks talking about completely switching over their fleets to renewables and that i wont argue can i interrupt . I asked specifically about pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and out of the oceans. Yeah. Is d. O. E. Working on this . I think there is some oregon state projects that are going on, on the oceanside of it, correct . My understanding. Maybe well follow up with paul later. One more question, you mentioned about Artificial Intelligence. And your excitement about Machine Learning. What questions are you attempting to answer with Machine Learning . You dont have enough time to get the answer to that from me or anybody else sitting here. It is across the board. It is things that as interesting as concussions. And we have been taught that there are three levels of concussion, mild, excuse me, there is mild, moderate and severe. And because of the work that has been done at the university of california san francisco, with the program that were involved with, their department of neuroscience, dr. Jeffrey manley, will tell you there is 28. And thats because of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning of the Super Computers were running at the department. Thats just in a very slender area of brain science. Youre using Artificial Intelligence to solve problems across the board. Not specifically the department of energy questions. The department of energy is a resource other than energy questions that are arising. Energy questions that are arising that were being able to find solutions to because of this massive amount of data that were able to crunch if you will and give us answers to questions that before we didnt have the time and the computing time to get to. Carbon capture, and thank you, i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Walsh. Thank you for your leadership. I think that whats going on in Energy Revolution in the United States of america is one of the great news stories and maybe the news story of the 21st century from the exports reaching 10 Million Barrels a day to export of lng and shifting that entire industry and as a combat veteran, which my colleagues have heard me say on this committee, i cant tell you how many veterans, how many Wounded Warriors we have in walter reed, how many weve lost, hauling diesel fuel across exposed supply lines getting iedd when many outposts and, in fact, many portions of our military can and should be existing on renewables. One thing im most excite about is solar. I went to a solar site that is built by Florida Power and light and its drive to have 30 million panels by 2030 with ten gigawatts of electricity. I am proud to say florida has eclipsed california now in q1 of 2019 with the most solar Power Installations for number one in the country, for new panels. And in the next five years is should be number one across the board. So i think the Sunshine State is living up to its name. My question, mr. Secretary, is how do you see the department really sustaining the private sector growth and as a conservative i love it that it is the private sector leading the charge on this, but obviously it is a state issue, Governor Desantis has been a real leader. How do you see the department continuing to really embolden and empower the private sector and particularly in solar, but renewables at large. Well, i look at our role from a standpoint of continuing to fund the opportunities to have Public Private partnerships, the commercialization of innovation and technology that is coming out of our National Labs, for instance. I think a governor and a legislature and a particular state would be wise to look at ways for that to give incentives to companies to risk their capital, working with their universities, for instance, where by and large your states, innovation and technology will come from. Looking for ways to partner with the d. O. E. , where you had the trifecta if you will of the state, the federal and the local working together on some of these projects. And great example of this, Florida Power, Just Announced 491 megawatt utility battery. Thats massive. Were talking. So with what youre doing exciting. By the way, for the record, solar just bypassed hydro was it isnt that right . Solar just bypassed hydro as a total deliverer of power in this country. Just some the wind, the solar side of things are really making some good progress. And Battery Storage. And the progress being made on Battery Storage is really fascinating. And ive always said that Battery Storage is the holy grail. If theres anything i hear about from constituents its traffic and flooding. Ive joined the flood coalition. Where do you see i know you mentioned a bit earlier, where do you see the help and resiliency issues . And in the interest of time if i could ask you to submit for the record the 17 labs. Dod also has 63 labs and i would be interested for the record how you coordinate. Thats a lot of activity, and we need to spend those dollars efficiently and just how you coordinate. And then expanding the scope of rpe. I think if we get into some other areas like Nuclear Waste disposal and other things that it may be more palatable across the board in terms of funding that organization. Let me hit a few of the highlights of what you talked about. Coordinating between agencies is important. One of the ways is to show up and to know what other agencies are doing rather than staying on your own. Im going to talk about some of the things theyre doing. Some of the ways we can partner with them. To make sure theyre not duplicating things. Paul did a pretty good job, we have different we have different missions. Dod and d. O. E. To make sure that were not the resiliency side of what we talked about is really important in that. We are the agency that has the responsibility for the reliability in the electrical sector. To make sure the lights come on. That is the dods responsibility. Other agencies have some areas that kind of come in on the fringes. D. O. E. , thats their baby. So were doing everything we can using those computers to model and let me finish up by saying the modeling side of what d. O. E. Is doing on the environment is going to pay, i think, great dividends to your state. Those states with the low lying areas that are seeing flooding occurring, seeing the effect of this changing climate that we live in and so i think these are some important goals. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I certainly appreciate that coordination. Madam chair, i yield my time. Thank you very much. Mr. Crist . Thank you, madam chair. And thank you, secretary governor perry. Its always good to see you. Its no secret im excited about solar energy and is my colleague to help our nation and frankly the world transition to a clean energy economy. Unfortunately the Administration Proposed cuts to the solar office of more than 70 and justified those cuts by saying they conducted activities that can and should be carried out by the private sector. Last year, however, the administration had tariffs on solar cells which supply the majority of u. S. Solar companies. These tariffs have arguably raised prices, slowed the industry to a degree and made it harder for Solar Companies to invest in their own research and development activities. Notably, two companies the tariffs were intended to help sonova and solar world, are now out of business as of just this month. Did the administration consult with Solar Developers to your knowledge about their ability to invest in research, development, and demonstration under the financial constraints of the tariffs . Congressman crist, i have no information that either acknowledging that i have no knowledge about any correspondence between those companies and the administration. Thank you. Did you ever consult with others in the administration such as maybe the trade representative about how tariffs could negatively impact the ability of Solar Companies to invest in research and development . Not necessarily just Solar Companies, but there have been a fum of companies that ive had conversations with that i did share with ambassador light hauser, the tariffs as proposed were going to have on these u. S. Based companies. And have had success. One of the things i do, one of my jobs, as governor, you know, is to get people together. I think its wise for us to be able to say hey, look, here is a constituent that ive got thats having some challenges with what youre proposing. Ive had some success putting them together. We dont have a deal yet they need to see people on the ground and see the decisions we make have on them. Do you think tariffs are more effective way to protect these companies than sustained federal investment in research and development . Youre starting to get a little bit out of my area of expertise, governor. All right, very well. Well, i will yield the balance of my time. Thank you for being here again. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Marshall . Thank you so much, chairwoman, and mr. Secretary, again, welcome. I just want to start by saying what a great country we live in. Im so proud that our Carbon Emissions today, a nice steady downward trend since 2003. And i think thats mainly due to conservation and innovation. If i could take our time to log in on agriculture and Rural America for a second. As i look at the big picture transportation creates about 29 of this countrys Carbon Emissions, industry about a fourth. Agriculture about 9 . So we feed this entire country and only produce about 9 of Carbon Emissions and were still able to transport another fourth of our products out of the country with that in mind. In my adult lifetime were doubling the agriculture producti production, using less water but still over the last decade agriculture has had a smaller carbon footprint. So im really proud of that. What is the d. O. E. Doing to help promote conservation, promote innovation so even though were improving, agriculture wants to keep improving. How can we keep working together, to put wind beneath your cell. Mr. Marshall, i think theres a couple areas that i would mention, that ive seen again in my travels through the National Labs and keep in mind one of my prior jobs in the state of texas would be the agriculture commissioner for eight years. I grew up on a farm and my mom still lives on that farm. Theres this real personal connection back to rural lifestyle, rural values and certainly the great contribution that agriculture and those Rural Communities make to america. With that said, in the Additive Manufacturing side is an area we have Great Potential to continue to be developing more efficient equipment both from a weight and a strength standpoint, that these National Labs, the work being done at oak ridge lab, their Additive Manufacturing lab is pretty fascinating. I made mention of secretary carson having some manufactured housing, Additive Manufacturing housing shown on the mall here within the last 30 days. He also had a vehicle. It was a cobra, a shelby cobra, that was built by the National Labs. And so the Agricultural Community can be served, i think, well in the Additive Manufacturing side with some of the work that were doing. Also at the national lab, and this is over in california at Lawrence Livermore, the work theyre doing on efficiency on Diesel Engine combustions and the emissions side of it. Again, theres you dont think about the department of energy and agriculture. Thats not the first thing that comes to mind. Idaho national lab, and ill finish with this, the work that theyre doing on biofuels and some of the Real Progress theyre making there. Theres three examples of a place where the department of energy is, i think, making positive impact on the agricultural Rural Communities. Great. Lets talk about Rural America for a second and the challenges, the improvements of Battery Storage. Like texas, kansas has a large wind energy production, about 35 of our electricity is generated from wind. Was recently in johnson city, kansas, our largest solar farm. We were breaking ground on it recently. What i learned is despite originally intend to go buy the solar panels from china that already, as President Trump predicted, theyve removed that supply chain of solar panels to other countries and, therefore, able to pull this project off so its exciting. But one of the challenges is when we have Battery Storage for one or two people in a mile stretch of dead end roads different than Battery Storage for big cities. Can you speak what the d. O. E. Is doing for Battery Storage and thats how the technology is improving and what the future looks like . I mentioned a little earlier what was happening in florida with what Governor Desantis was laying out along with Florida Power on their storage. A lot of that technology came from work thats been done in a national lab. Some of the work theyre doing on Battery Storage. Theres new grid storage, launch pad thats occurring at d. O. E. Thats going to accelerate material development, testing, having some independent evaluation of battery materials, battery systems. I think i asked paul to talk a little bit about some of the elements in these batteries that are not Rare Earth Minerals that will be very effective for us, that we dont have quite we dont have the concern about where those materials are going to be coming from developed in the United States. Validating this material capability, accelerating new technologies and obviously collaborating collaboration with the d. O. E. And the labs out there. And the states have a role to play. Of course. I remind people when they think about texas they think about you are big oil and Gas Producing states, which we are. We wanted to have a diverse portfolio. What occurred in texas, i remind my friends in europe on a regular basis, mr. Fletcher, when i go over there that texas produces more percentage wise than what the European Union does. Thats a good thing. Thank you, i yield back. Thank you very much. Miss weston. Earlier you moved a political appointee into the position of Deputy Assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency within d. O. E. Do you know the name of this individual . I can just tell you, mr. Secretary. Its alex fitzsimmons. Does that sound familiar . Yes. Can you tell melifications f this job . As a regular practice, i dont talk about personnel issues in the public. Very good. Well, ill share with you some of what ive learned in the Public Domain about mr. Fitzsimmons. He graduated from George Washington university in 2012 with a degree in political science. He spent the next four years in a variety of junior roles fossil fuel Energy Advocacy groups energy the American Energy alliance. Now i was surprised to learn, but you may not be, that in 2015 while mr. Fitzsimmons was there, the American Energy alliance called for congress to eliminate the office of Energy Efficiency, the very office he now leads. Were you aware of that . Here is what i am aware of no, that was my question. Now you know about the office of energy this is going to be good. You should let me go but im not going to do it now. Fair enough. You do know about the office of Energy Efficiency, hundreds of fulltime staff, it supports thousands of national lab employees. Its the lead federal agency for Energy Efficiency policy, programs and research which include advanced manufacturing building, Energy Management and low income weatherization, right . Thats what it does. Now by way of contrast with regard to qualifications, the previous Deputy Assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency Kathleen Hogan served in the role for a decade. Prior to that she served at she received a president ial rank award. Was inducted into the Energy Efficiency hall of fame for the u. S. Energy association and was a contributor to the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She has a ph. D. From the department of geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins university, and her predecessor served at d. O. E. As a Technology Leader for nearly 20 years before rising to the rank of Deputy Assistant secretary. Now, as i understand it, mr. Fitzsimmons is the first ever political appointee to serve in that role, and he is by far the youngest. Can you tell me why you chose to fill the position with a political appointee instead of a career technologist . Im going to pass on talking about personnel issues. Okay. Well, i understand that mr. Fitzsimmons is serving in an acting role, can you tell us when you expect to fill that position on a permanent basis . I cant. Okay. Well, when you do, i hope that you find somebody with the experience and gravitas to lead hundreds of the nations best scientists and engineers. Now, i want to talk a little bit about some of the Budget Proposals from the administration. This year the administrations budget request proposes massive cuts to Renewable Energy across the board with cuts higher than 70 for both wind and solar offices. If these cuts were to take place, can you tell me approximately how many lab employees would lose their jobs . I would have to go back and i think trying to play the hypothesis game of if you do this, then whats this budget look like is kind of a waste of my time and your time, quite frankly. Would you agree that cutting the budget by 70 will cause some of the lab employees to lose their jobs . What id tell you is that i think, you know, cutting the you can make the statement that cutting the budget by 100 would cause some people to lose their job but thats not the reality thats going to happen in this committee. You look back historically at what this committees done, and heres whats more important is that i understand how to manage an agency. I had the opportunity to manage a fairly big entity for 14 years as the governor of the state of texas, and i also respect the appropriations process, and the appropriations process. And the prapser e appropriators madame chair, reclaiming my time if i may. I understand what the secretary mr. Secretary what youre saying about the budget and appropriations process, but what i would ask that you keep in mind is that even when these proposed cuts are rejected by congress, which they surely will be, that you understand that these proposed cuts have severe impacts on lab employees and the morale within those labs that you have spoken so highly of. Thank you, and i yield back my time. Thank you very much, ms. Fletcher. Thank you, chairwoman johnson for holding this hearing. Thank you, secretary perry, for testifying before our committee today. As a native houstonian and a texan and now the representative for texass seventh Congressional District in houston where i represent the energy corridor, i appreciate all of the above energy approach that youve talked about this morning and that you embraced as the governor of our state and these innovative policies have led texas to being really the leader in Renewable Energy. People are indeed surprised when i tell them that texas has produces the most wind energy of any state in the union, more than three times the next leading state, and i give credit to your policies for that every time i talk about it because i really think that it is important what were doing in terms of diversifying our portfolio and talking about research. And so for that there are a couple of Budget Priorities i do want to talk about and get your perspective on this morning. The department of energy has worked on Carbon Dioxide removal technologies and the Intergovernmental Panel that weve talked about this morning as well recommends Carbon Capture as being a critical piece in our path forward in combatting Climate Change, so where d. O. E. Has worked on technologies like direct air capture and development through fossil energy, the office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and the office of science, weve seen some of the major successes from that in the petra nova plant that you referenced earlier in your testimony. In addition, there is also the in response to congresswoman beyers question, theres that power plant outside of houston which has worked on natural gas technologies, as well as coal, so theres a lot of that happening. But from the Budget Priorities, its not clear whether the department of energy will continue to support this promising technology. Can you talk a little bit about what the department of energy plans to do Going Forward when it comes to Carbon Capture technology . I can give it to you the short version is were going to continue to support it, continue to be a priority. Theres a national Carbon Capture center in alabama, and thats going to be validating new technologies that are out there and some transformational technologies, taking it from the bench to lab scale. A key priority to all of this is going to be continuing to reduce the cost of the technology so that you can get this broad deployment of these technologies. One of the things we try to do and the reason congresswoman fletcher, we put in and i ask and was successful in getting into the Clean Energy Ministerial Carbon Capture utilization sequestration technologies in a global way because, you know, one of our roles, i think, American Technology is how the world in a lot of cases gets transformed, and if we can take this type of technology, if we can continue to improve it where its a commercial scale and get our friends in india and in china to take this technology and to implement it, then we really start having commercial scale impact on the environment. So one of the reasons this is, you know, we continue to really push this is because of its applications globally and so im i can assure you that its going to continue to stay a priority at the agency. And a followup to question, base it was concerning to me that in the fiscal year 2020 Budget Proposal which i understand is just a proposal, but it had a 65 reduction in ccus. And my understanding was that some of the rationale, at least presented, the severe place where industry could better commercialize the technology. My understanding at this point is that while certainly we use it for enhanced oil recovery, generally ccus is not commercially viable, and so i guess the question i have for you in front of this committee is what do you suggest that we do here to chart the path forward for ccus and give you the tools that you need to continue that research at d. O. E. . Yeah, i tend to agree with your observation that its going to still continue to require our d. O. E. s engagement from the standpoint of expending some funds on innovation and technology, and this national Carbon Capture center in alabama is a great example of that. Theres still work to be done, so and if i could correct the record just on one thing that i said earlier, and i made mention that that solar producing more energy than hydro. Its actually wind energy. I should have known better being from texas. Thank you. I just for the record. Thank you, secretary perry, and with that i see ive exceeded my time, so i will yield back madam chair mr. Chairman. Madam, mister, the chair now recognizes mr. Sherman for five minutes. Mr. Secretary, half a Million People live within just ten miles of the Santa Susanna field nuclear laboratory. Your department signed the correct the Consent Order for corrective action in 2007, and the administrative orders on consent in 2010 with the California Department of toxic substance control. The latter required full cleanup of the site by 2017, so in 2010 your department agreed to full cleanup by 2017, but to date no meaningful cleanup has occurred at all, so youre supposed to be completed by 2017, you havent started by 2019. Will you come to the San Fernando Valley and explain to people when this site will be fully cleaned up . Mr. Sherman, i would be more than happy to accompany you and try to explain ill do my best to explain what happened the seven years before i got here and why there wasnt any progress made on that, but i dont know if i i dont know if ill be successful in i look forward to joining you in the San Fernando Valley, and i thank you for making that comment for the record. Countries that are friends live by the nonproliferation treaty if they signed it. Iran and north korea have gone toward a Nuclear Program without the Additional Protocol with the iaea, and we have saudi arabia, which claims to be our friend, but at least when it comes to Nuclear Matters seems to be acting like a rogue state. The south korean firm, Korea Electric Power Corporation is talking to the to saudi arabia about a large Nuclear Power construction project. That project the south Korea Nuclear project is based on American Technology. Can you state for the record the administrations position on whether this south korean firm would need to see a 1, 2, 3 greet between the United States and saudi arabia to sell large Nuclear Reactors to saudi arabia . What i think we would be helpful here is if people understand part 810 im going to get a part 810 question but the first question is south korea free to build large Nuclear Plants in saudi arabia using American Technology here would be my answer is it would be no because they would require a part 810 before they could go into a because that is u. S. Technology. I think theyd also need a 123 agreement, but i agree with you it is u. S. Technology. Can you commit that the administration wont enter into a Nuclear Cooperation agreement with saudi arabia unless saudi arabia signs the Additional Protocol . This has been our bargaining position on these since the 1990s. Yes, sir. That has been our position in all of our conversations that we have had with the kingdom of saudi arabia. Good answer. The Atomic Energy act, section 303, requires that you Keep Congress fully and currently informed on subject matters relating to Atomic Energy. You have issued at least seven part 810 authorizations to allow u. S. Companies to discuss and submit documents to saudi arabia seeking their business. It took my office about six months to get a copy of these part 810s. Can you promise to provide the 810 authorizations in the future if they relate to saudi arabia to both this committee and the Foreign Affairs committee promptly . Yes, sir, and let me just the caveat on that mr. Sherman, would be unless the company deems them to be proprietary information. At that particular point in time. I dont know all the specific details, but every bit of information that is publicly disclosable you can bet well, i would hope that you keep in mind members of congress are trusted. Yes, sir. With the most secret information of our intelligence and defense agencies. If im not going to reveal what i know from the cia, i think westinghouse can trust me. With that i thank you for your answers. Good answers, thank you. Thank you. The chair recognizes mr. Perlmutter for five minutes. Yes, thank you for your testimony. Thanks for your stamina, were getting to the end of the line here. First thing, mr. Secretary, 2033, okay . I hold this Bumper Sticker up at a lot of hearings. The undersecretary is familiar with this. This is when the orbits of mars and earth are the closest for decades, and weve been talking about getting our astronauts to mars by 2033, and with your interest and your work with nasa on potentially Nuclear Propulsion as part of the ability to get our astronauts there, i just want to enroll you in getting our astronauts to mars by 2033, and i want you to work with mr. Bridenstine on that. You dont have to answer it. I just want to enroll all of in this measure, okay. I want to answer it, though. All right. Buzz aldrin will wear me out if we dont get ourselves to mars as soon as we can. All right, thank you. Im glad to hear that. All right. Number two, dr. Foster, who is up here talking about argon and illinois and all that stuff, he is one of the most biased cochairs in favor of his state that any of us could ever have. And as you know and i appreciate the visits that you all have made out to the national Renewable Energy lab, which is in my district and obviously very proud of that, and i think some of the words youve used, i think weve got to really take heart and im going to lay into you guys a little bit because you used words like brilliant, capable, outstanding staff. Youre scientists, your technicians youre engineers. Second to none in the world, okay, and you as the chief executive, you as the lieutenant, the cfo here, youve got a staff thats fantastic, and if you were back as governor of texas and you say to that staff, you know what, im going to cut your budget by 85 , thats what you guys mean to me. I mean, when you say that, it hurts, and so ms. Lofgren and you had an interesting conversation. You said im going to look to congress to help me on this, but im going to say to you, mr. Secretary, we look to you, we depend on you to defend your department. So im going to just ask you, what are the dynamics that lead to Something Like an 85 cut to the Energy Efficiency and renewable Energy Portfolio . Ill give it back to you like i did or i think i did remember, last year you and the undersecretary and i talked about these budget cuts, which last year were pretty draconian. I said, look, you know, administration to administration you can kind of push a priority, but you dont gut the rest of it. And you said, no, we dont want to do that, but again, it happened. But i dont think thats not the budget, and we have a budget thats already been approved, and thats not what the budget is. I know what the omb said. But, again, i go back i guess my dynamics between you and omb how does it really work . They come in with these budgets, they say this is what its going to be. You have okay but i guess were going to have to work with congress. Pretty much. I aint going to lie to you. Listen, i dont write that budget. When i was the governor of the state of texas, i had a budget, and it would go over to the legislature and i knew what it would turn out to be, and that was a doorstop. All right. Thats how ombs budget let me ask you this no, i appreciate this conversation. So as the head of the department, when omb comes back with these numbers that really arent realistic that are going to change dramatically in congress, what do you say to the staff . Doesnt matter . Were going to go to congress and well see what they do . Pretty much. All right, all right. Okay, so thats enough of that. Look listen, its their this is their prerogative. I understand how the process works. I dont get spun up and but i dont want your staff to get spun up. Thats the point. I dont think they do. All right. I dont think the national lab folks, they know where i stand on this. They have heard me not only in word but in deed and weve seen that, weve seen that, and i appreciate that because you have defended and stood up for the national Renewable Energy lab and these other labs. And will continue to. And i appreciate that. All right, last thing, that laboratory nrel has something similar to somebody else mentioned what we call the colaboratory, which is the lab colorado university, colorado state, the school of mines, conoco used to be part of that group. I think they still may be. You know, as a way to provide the best minds towards, you know, advancing science and advancing the commercial use of some of these new technologies, so i just wanted to put that out there, that weve been doing that for a while. And thats interesting. Its some of these types of innovative solutions, options, is how i look at managing d. O. E. , you know. Listen, omb has their job. They do their job. I get that, but its coming up with some of these Solutions Using the private sector, using some University Resources and what have you to find the, you know, find a way to manage these to get us to the point where we can have a solution. All right, thank you gentlemen and i yield back my time. Thank you, the chair will now recognize himself for five minutes. Thank you so much for coming, secretary perry. Really appreciate it. Earlier this week, we have received reports of the department of agriculture was actively working to bury peerreviewed scientific reports on the impacts of Climate Change in the agricultural sector, and the theres a significant problem, this administration has some discomfort around objective truth, but as it comes to Climate Change, this is a real concern because if we are essentially going to reject the Scientific Method and our processes, we are going to put not just the American People but our entire species at risk, so my question to you, mr. Secretary, which is a real simple one. I dont think youll need your notes for this. Are you personally aware of any steps that your department is taking to suppress reports that discuss Climate Change or its effects . No, as a matter of fact we Just Announced today a ive got number of questions, so im delighted to hear that. Thats terrific. Can i have your commitment that if you become aware of any of those efforts you will exert your leadership role to make sure it doesnt happen . Sure. Terrific. I am im delighted to hear that. Im delighted to hear in your opening testimony that you accept that man made Climate Change is real and something we have to deal with. I like to point out to people that in the 100,000 years or so that our species has existed, 50 of all of the co2 we have ever emitted since 1980, that was the year nolan ryan signed with the houston astros. Thats in our collective memory, and the scale of that change is meaningful. As we warm the climate, the average temperature goes up by a few degrees but the number of extreme events increases dramatically. You mentioned that in your testimony as well. I know youre personally aware of this in houston. I think presumably you would agree that theres been a significant increase in the number of extreme weather events . Yeah. And would you agree that those are caused by Global Warming . Im not sure i can would you agree that weather is a bell curve, and as you move the average on the bell curve you increase the tails by a much greater percent than the middle. Im not going to those are your words, not mine. Listen, i think sitting here trying to im asking you to opine on basic statistics. If youre not comfortable with basic statistics ill move on. Heres what im not comfortable with i will stipulate im comfortable the department of energy is doing some fascinating work on Predictive Modeling, and i hope you would be supportive of that rather than sitting here trying to go back and forth about do you believe this, do you believe that, is look at what were doing secretary, im what were doing is making some Real Progress on giving predictive real sciencebased evidence to this committee and to the citizens of this country. Secretary perry, if i may, i agree, i think the department of energy is awesome. And im going to echo mr. Perlmutter, you run a 12 billion agency that does fantastic work. The weatherization budget is zeroed out. What i need as a citizen and i think what we need as a congress is for you to exercise leadership to defend those budgets and priorities, even when the administration doesnt, because it is clear that omb and the president are not supporting that. I want to shift to something that i think we may have a whole lot of agreement on. I am delighted to hear you describe Energy Storage as the holy grail of energy. Weve got this fantastic improvement in your state and elsewhere of resources that need storage to balance that load. Its why one of the first major bills i introduced when i got here was the bipartisan promoting grid storage act, which would create cross cutting d. O. E. And technical programs to help the public and private sector derisk and deploy those new storage technologies. Your budget to its credit increases the Energy Storage r d supported by the office of electricity by 5 . Thats about 2. 5 million. It reduces spending in the Renewable Energies vehicle Technologies Program by 79 or 270 million, so that is a net drop of lets round it off, 270 million in funding for Energy Storage that i think from your testimony and sort of where i come from, we agree. Can you help me understand and this committee understand why if Energy Storage is indeed the holy grail of technology we have a budget that drastically defunds our commitment to deploy the Energy Storage that we need to keep our grid resilient in the mix of changing resources we have . In a broad sense what i would tell you is that the cross cutting technologies, i mean, just because we dont fund at the same level as we have historically or that youve seen in previous line items doesnt mean that theres not ongoing Technology Moving something forward. For instance, i would suggest to you that in some of the electric vehicle side of things, weve spent the dollars to get us to the point where we need to be with those, and we dont need to be, you know, spending more dollars Going Forward in that that weve already, you know, moved to a place where were comfortable. But im talking about in aggregate total spending, your budget would suggest we dont need r d anymore given a 79 cut. Not necessarily. What im saying is we have the ability to manage those dollars in a way where the priorities are. Are the are the priorities on the electric vehicle place they were four years ago . No, because weve matured. Given the comments you just made to mr. Perlmutter that you sounded like you felt like the omb budget was something, but were going to fix that. We agree that Energy Storage is the holy grail. I think we agree that the budget doesnt meet that goal. What would you like to see congress do to develop a budget thats actually going to deploy Energy Storage at the scale we need . I think the budget that weve got is appropriate to get to us the played that we need to be. Across the board . Yeah. Across the board. The budget thats already been approved. The omb budget . No, the budget that this the 19. I yield back my time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary perry, my colleague mr. Sherman a few minutes ago gauged with you about the santa susana field lab. We are neighbors and so i want to second what he stated given that many of my constituents are impacted by this site as well, which is just outside of my district, and although operations at the site ceased in 2006, it remains extremely toxic with chemical and radioactive contamination. Im deeply disappointed along with my constituents with the lack of action and transparency the donchts d. O. E. Has shown over the last decade. The d. O. E. And nasa signed an administrative order of Consent Ordering that d. O. E. And nasa take responsibility for their pollutants and contaminants at the field lab and do a full cleanup which was supposed to be completed in 2017 and clearly has not been, and in fact, nearly nothing of progress has happened. So can you speak more specifically about your plans of action for the complete cleanup of this site and how long it will take . I can let me give you the for the record here. The department as you said signed an administrative order of consent with california to clean up the background cleanup at the site, and the preferred alternative in the feis is not in the aoc cleanup for the following reasons. There are various factors that are included in making a recommendation for preferred alternative. These include considering the final land use of the site as open space and the ecological and cultural impacts of any cleanup option. Additionally, studies performed after signing the aoc identified less contamination than previously projected. When considering the factors with potential effects at the at the site, the preferred alternative would be the best option for the site to be cleaned in a way that ensures it will be protective of human health and the environment while avoiding unnecessary damage to the cultural and ecological resources present at the site. The final decision will be fully protective of human health and the environment. I understand that. So whats the progress in terms of the preferred alternative . Is there a negotiation that needs to happen . What are we looking at in terms of something being able to i mean, no cleanup really has started right, so even a preferred alternative i would like to see some action towards and im wondering if you can speak to that. May i get undersecretary dubard to share with you . Yeah. The Environmental Impact statement was completed by us and sorry we cant comment what happened in a previously leadership team. We completed that. We submitted that to the state, and were working with the state on the actual specifics of what would make sense given that Environmental Impact statement. We look forward to working with the state of california on that. Thank you, so i know that you mentioned to mr. Sherman or my colleague that you might visit our region and speak about this with our constituents and i look forward to discussing those plans further. Be happy to. I know that the other piece that has been somewhat confusing to our region is the level of resources that have been allocated to cleanup, and i do recognize that this happened before your administration, but can you explain how the department decides to distribute the funds between Nuclear Cleanup sites . Well, i think we go through a process of being when you look at the history of this country, when you look at hanford, for instance, when you look at the Manhattan Project and all of the cleanup that we have a massive amount of work to be done in the future, so, you know, we prioritize it as best we can, and i think do a relatively passable job of my bet is you think they probably need to spend a little bit more money in the San Fernando Valley. Would be my bet. Im guessing everybody wants more money to be spent. Im pretty sure that the senators from Washington State have the same observation that theres not enough money spent in the hanford side to suit them. I do think it would be worth us taking a better look at how these decisions are made, maybe the metrics and how we can just better understand that and explain it back to our constituents as well. But i do commend the department for restarting the lodos radiation program. Really quick, i know i dont have a lot of time left, but i want to turn to freedom gas and renewables, and secretary perry last month, you released an announcement that the department would be expanding to spread freedom gas to other countries. While i applaud the desire to increase the economic competitiveness of the u. S. To other countries, im concerned that the majority of the time is spent advocating for coal and natural gas as opposed to renewable sources. So im wondering if you can just talk about how how those other sources of energy, whether its solar, wind, hydro power and geothermal are going to be included in these plans in terms of export . Again, i remind people of my history with wind. There is not an elected official in the country, not a governor, not a president , no one who has a record that is any more productive when it comes to a renewable, in this case wind, than i had as the governor of the state of texas, so and we continue to promote them and talk about them. We do an all of the above impact, but let me get with specificity to l and g and why you may or it may appear to a lot of folks you spend an inordinate amount of time promoting liquefied natural gas. And i dont shy away from that. I do. I think its a cleanburning fuel that every molecule of lng that we can get into the market displacing old or inefficient coal burning plants in europe, for instance, is a win for the climate. And im going to continue doing that because i think the idea that, you know, not only is it in our best interests from a geopolitical standpoint, its also in the climates best interests and i think its in the worlds best interests. So, we promote an all of the above approach. We, by and large, dont try to pick winners from losers. We try to explain to people why the Technology May be better for them to go one way or the other, but by and large, we stick with an all of the above approach, and if it can come from the United States and be United States friendly, Technology Wise or resource wise, then i think thats thats good for us. I know im out of time and i want to thank you, and i yield back. Thank you, ill now recognize mr. Lipinski for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you, secretary, for being here for your testimony. You talked about High Performance computing, the importance of it. You were at the national lab a couple of months ago for an announcement on the aurora commuter so thank you for coming out there. In the just last week in the house energy and water appropriations bill, i introduced amendment. We passed the amendment to provide additional funding for the argon leadership computing facility personnel, to hopefully speed the process of this computer. Can you elaborate on the potential of exoscale computing and the ramifications if we fall behind as we are racing china on this. Yeah. Mr. Lipinski, i think the most the simplest way that i tell people about whats going on with exoscale and quantities item computing is this. Who gets to quantum first wins. And i know that may be so simplistic, but its really true. And the work that were doing getting us to exoscale, obviously that aurora computer at argon is one of the first steps, i think the next one is out at lawrence berkeley. And getting us to exoscale as i said earlier, thats doing a billion billion transactions per second. Then the next step is quantum, and at that particular point in time, and for the u. S. To get to that first, its going to impact everything across the board because the Artificial Intelligence, the Machine Learning, that goes along with them and being able to manage that much data is kind of the name of the game. So thank you. Well, i appreciate your support and the we need to continue to support it. And provide the funding thats necessary to move this forward. I want to move on to Artificial Intelligence efforts, d. O. E. Has many efforts going on, as well as other federal agencies also do. I know that the administration has taken steps to improve coordination of ai, but i think the coordination efforts could be improved. So, i introduced the growing Artificial Intelligence to research act which in part ensures that there are essential coordinating entities. I just want to ask, you can describe how ai efforts are coordinated across d. O. E. , as well as coordinated with other federal agencies and how migai benefit. Mr. Lipinski, your question is pretty timely. I mentioned this a little earlier. But tomorrow im doing a tour of darpa, in which were talking about the coordination of d. O. E. , and in this days do dd d the Defense Agency over there. So theyre very focused on it now. And in a lot of cases, as under secretary dabbar said, they have a different mission than dod does, but we complement each other and what we want to make sure that were not duplicating. And that theres synergy coming out of the dollars that were expending, dealing with Artificial Intelligence and how we combine those. Nuclear security is part of this. The electric Grid Security is part of this. All of these areas are going to cyber security, you know, modeling for the the thing i mentioned, the predictive modelling that d. O. E. Is going into so we can better predict whats going on happen with these severe storms. These computers, this Artificial Intelligence thats going to be managed with these computers with this predictive model, these are examples where we can stand up in front of our constituents and say listen, heres where our tax dollars are spent. And heres return on investment. Selfdriving cars, this list goes on and on. Mr. Lipinski, i think actually, argonne is the exact edge of your topic. Historic, ai has been looked primary people have been focused on it as image capture and data pattern recognition. Thats what most people talk about when they talk about ai. Argon is much farther down the road. Using ai to learn First Principles at physics, at chemistry, at biology and at materials. For ai to actually do Research Based on first principle science is actually where ai is going. So, i think your bill is very important. And about coordination, what theyre doing at argon i think is very much conduct edge. This isnt just about advanced computing and rick stevens at arg argon, they just showed up here and laid out the head of the resources for s fos for argon computing. And theyre developing a whole cycle of Research Based on First Principles to use ai to drive First Principles of materials. And using argon as all one organized entity to do research. This is actually where research is done. I just want to just for the record, as my time is up, if you can give more information about the funding opportunity announcement for fiscal year 20 about the two or more multidisciplinary Quantum Research centers. I wanted to get find out more about that, something in variati very interested in. And something that argon is interested in. Well get it. And well get it in the record. Let me jeust finishly saying october, this coming october, there will be a lab at argon focused on Artificial Intelligence. I hope youll be there. Thank you. Yield back. Before we bring the hearing to a close, i want to thank secretary perry for coming to testify before the committee today. The record will remain open for an additional two weeks for further statements or additional question the committee may ask of the witness. The witness is excused and the hearing is now adjourned. Madam chair. Excuse me, excuse me. Cspans 2020 coverage continues later today. Live, at 7 00 p. M. , Elizabeth Warren will give a speech at new york citys Washington Square park. And at 9 00 eastern, President Trump speaks at a Campaign Rally in rio rancho in new mexico. Both live on cspan. Org or on the radio app. Our cspan 2020 bus team is traveling across the country visiting key battleground state its in the 2020 race asking voters cha issues they want president ial candidates to address during the campaign. I think a really pressing issue id like to see candidates talk about is health care. Because theres a lack of health care in the country. I think Affordable Health care. And some people arent going as far as i would like to go into the details how they plan to handle that. I hear a lost of general ideas like policy. Id like to see where that goes. Id really like the candidates to discuss how were going to renormalize ourselves in what we used to call the free world and the rest of the world as a leader in democracy. And a leader around the world. And also a cooperating force with the rest of the world. I would like to know of these candidates their ideas on Nuclear Energy. And the reinvestments of technology in every state in the country. And i would like to know if they believe its sustainable, reliable and Worthy Investment to our nation. Im really concerned about the Climate Crisis and about gun safety legislation. And those are two essential things that have to be addressed by the election next year. Id wish theyd be addressed by congress before that. But it doesnt appear the senate will move on that. Also, we need to try to get back to enforcing the constitution, that whoever becomes president should obey the emollients clause. Should conduct business with integrity. Should not ridicule minl nort m or handicap people or aged or anyone else. We need to restore integrity and we need to restore a sense of service to all people. Voices from the campaign trail. Part of cspans battleground states tour. President trumps former Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski will be on capitol hill tomorrow. Hes expected to appear before the House Judiciary Committee for a hearing looking at possible obstruction of Robert Muellers investigation of the president. Watch coverage at. Cspan 13. Online at cspan. Org or the listen app. Acting Army Secretary ryan