Mike Doyle: “Mr. Chairman, although I anticipate much partisanship in the debate over H.R. 3322, I want to point out that the…”

“Mr. Chairman, although I anticipate much partisanship in the debate over H.R. 3322, I want to point out that the National Science Foundation enjoys strong bipartisan support. I want to thank Basic Research Subcommittee Chairman Schiff for the professional, nonpartisan manner in which he has conducted himself on all matters within Basic Research's jurisdiction, including the NSF. On the NSF budget generally, I hope that we will continue to maintain our history of bipartisan advocacy. The support that NSF provides in meeting a wide variety of challenges in math, science, and engineering education cannot be overstated. In my region, both Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh rely heavily on NSF support to conduct important research in a number of areas. What concerns me enough to rise at this point, is the future of NSF's Supercomputing Program. The Basic Research Subcommittee has held two hearings relating to the Supercomputing Program, one on the high performance computing and communications initiative in general, and one on NSF's decision to recompete its Supercomputing Program. The common theme in these two hearings was that we are letting funding issues compromise the integrity of what has been recognized by Members in both parties as a model program. What especially disturbs me is NSF's decision to 'recompete' its leading edge centers based upon the findings of the Hayes Report.”