Senate appropriators criticized President Trump’s Energy Department budget on Wednesday for a perceived desire to unravel decades of energy and scientific research through funding cuts that would place other countries ahead of the United States.
“The federal debt is not the result of Congress overspending on science and energy research each year,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s energy and water panel.
“The United States faces a choice between falling further behind competitors like China or advancing technologies that can make us safer and more competitive,” he said.
The hearing was the second day Energy Secretary Rick Perry was on Capitol Hill to defend the fiscal year 2018 budget after facing tough questions in front of House appropriators from both parties on Tuesday.
The president’s budget looks to cut the agency’s overall budget by 6 percent. Most of those cuts are made to research and development programs for fossil, nuclear and renewable energy.
“Many are concerned that the Department is delaying funding announcements based on objections to climate change and clean energy research,” Alexander said. “The truth is increased research in clean energy is important to dealing with climate change, but that is only one reason we do it. It is also important to lowering the cost of electricity, which raises family incomes and spurs economic growth.”
The top Democrat on the energy and water panel, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, seconded Alexander’s concerns, saying “These programs foster new discoveries,” but all that will be “decimated by this budget request.” In addition, it would lay off hundreds of Energy Department workers, including many at the agency’s fleet of national laboratories.
Feinstein said she wants to work with Perry to hash out a budget that makes America “proud,” but the current proposal will not work.
One of the bright spots in the budget, Alexander said, is its increased support for supercomputers. The chairman noted that China and the Swiss are now leading the pack on the development of these large computers that are used to solve key problems on technical, medical and scientific advancement.
A report released this week showed that for the first time in 21 years, the U.S. did not occupy the top three spots in a review of the world’s top 500 supercomputers. The top two supercomputers are in China, with the number three spot held by Switzerland.
The fastest computer in the U.S., called Titan, resides at Oak Ridge National Lab in Alexander’s home state. The lab is slated to finish building a new supercomputer called Summit in 2018, he told Perry.
Summit will be more than five times faster than Titan and will be used to support “energy breakthroughs,” Alexander said. “I’m pleased to see that the Department’s budget request prioritizes supercomputing, and includes $508 million to deliver the first exascale machine by 2021.”
