President Obama released his annual budget request on Monday February 2nd (interesting note: Fiscal Year 2016 is the first time his administration released the budget on time). As we have done in years past, the CRA Policy Blog will be doing a series of posts on the assorted budget requests for key science agencies, particularly highlighting the ones that are of importance to the computing community. Check back for more agencies.
First up is the Department of Energy (DOE). The two key parts of DOE for the computing community are the Office of Science (SC), home of most of the agency’s basic research support, and ARPA-E. For SC, the office would see a very healthy increase of 5.4 percent from FY15 to FY16 (going from $5.07B to $5.34B). Seeing as the agency has limped through the Sequestration era with up-and-down budgets, this request is very good.
Perhaps most important for computing researchers is the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. ASCR would see a huge increase in funding, going up by 14.8 percent (or $541M in FY15 to $621M in FY16). Most of the justification for this increase (~$87M) is set aside for the exascale computing initiative. In fact, Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz said that exascale computing, both hardware and software, is a “top priority across the Office of Science.” Some other details from ASCR’s request are that their user facilities are operating, “optimally and with >90% availability;” and “deployment of 10-40 petaflop upgrade at NERSC and continued preparation for 75-200 petaflop upgrades at the Leadership Computing Facilities” continue. Also, the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship is restored at $10M to, “fully fund a new cohort.” (You’ll recall we joined with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) to call on Congress to preserve the CS Grad Fellowship program.)
Digging a little deeper, the majority of the ASCR increase — $77.5M — is provided for the High Performance Computing and Networking Facilities (HPCF) subaccount. The Mathematical, Computational, and Computer Sciences Research subaccount would receive a more modest increase of $2.5M.
As for ARPA-E (or Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), it would see the same increase the President requested last year: 16.1 percent (or $280M in FY15 to $325M in FY16). The agency, “advances high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment.” This increase has become something of a tradition for ARPA-E, where the White House recommends a significant increase but Congress decides to flat fund the agency. There are few indications that this dynamic will change with this budget.
The big question now is will Congress pass this request? While it is true that support for computing research is widespread and bipartisan, it is still unlikely that this budget will breeze through the legislative process. For starters, throughout his request, the President has rejected funding levels called for by the budget deal that brought us sequestration, or the mandatory, across-the-board budget cuts, that are still US law. In rolling back sequestration, Obama is making an argument that the country is coming out of the recession and that these cuts need to be replaced with something more targeted. It’s unlikely that the Republican-controlled Congress shares that view. In addition to the sequestration rollback, it’s likely that congressional Republicans will have a different set of priorities within the Dept of Energy budget about things like climate change, sustainable energy, and clean coal programs, and those will require adjustments throughout the proposed budget to accommodate. So chances are very good that the final FY16 budget for DOE will look very little like the President’s request. But there appears to be strong bipartisan support for DOE computing programs (see, for example, last week’s hearing), and ASCR has recently fared well even when other aspects of the Office of Science budget have been flat-funded (or worse). So perhaps a little cautious optimism is warranted.
We’ll be watching this budget, and the other science agencies’ budgets, as they progress through Congress this year. Check back for more updates.
On Wednesday January 28th, the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing on, “Supercomputing and American Technology Leadership.” The witnesses that were called, who spanned the public and private sectors in high performance computing (HPC), gave the simple message that in order to out compete other nations, America needs to out compute them. And that calls for sustained funding for supercomputing resources and research.
The hearing was opened by Subcommittee Chairman Randy Weber (R-TX), who, in his opening statement, said that, “it is our job in Congress to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, on innovative research that is in the national interest, and provides the best chance for broad impact and long-term success. The basic research conducted within the ASCR program (the Department of Energy’s Advanced Scientific Computing and Research program) clearly meets this requirement.” He elaborated by saying, “high performance computing can lead to scientific discoveries, economic growth, and will maintain America’s leadership in science and technology.” Science Committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), in her own opening statement, echoed much the same points, saying, “public policies play a critical role in supporting the advancement of high performance computing, and in enabling our society and economy to directly benefit from this capability.” She pointed out that, “the U.S. currently hosts more than 45% of the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world,” and that, “as we enter the world of ‘big data’, where thousands of devices all around us are generating millions of bytes of data to be analyzed, high performance computing is needed not just by scientists and government researchers, but by many civic and commercial enterprises as well.”
The panel of witnesses was a venerable who’s-who of high performance computing and science policy. They included Norman Augustine, board member of the Bipartisan Policy Center and an “old sage” of the science policy community (long time readers of this blog will recognize him as the co-chair of the National Academies study “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”); Roscoe Giles, Chairman of the DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee, who spoke on what is happening at ASCR; Dave Turek, Vice President, Technical Computing, at IBM, who gave the industry perspective for HPC and insight into the long-term challenges the field is facing; and James Crowley, Executive Director of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), who gave the perspective from the scientific community. You can read their testimony in full on the House Science Committee website.
The witnesses agreed that America needs to increase their investment in supercomputing. In response to a question from Ranking Member Johnson about how he would make the case to lawmakers to increase funding for research, Mr. Augustine said that in order to compete with other countries, we have to be faster at applying research to the economy and the best way to do that is through improved computing. Vice-chairman Dan Newhouse (R-WA) asked what Congress could do to remove barriers to allow the DOE National Laboratories to be able to better transfer research to industries; Mr. Augustine pointed out that much of industry doesn’t know what’s going on at the national labs and that he has found the best way to transfer knowledge is to move people. While Mr. Augustine understood the need to have tight conflict of interest laws, encouraging more movement of scientists between labs and industry would help speed up the transfer of research. Finally, a question from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on what the next step beyond the use of silicon in computers could be; Mr. Turek pointed out that we have reached the limits of silicon and there is no single solution to this problem. The only option is more research to find more options. Dr. Giles, in response to Rep. Massie’s question, also pointed out that ASCR, and the Department of Energy as a whole, is in an excellent position tackle this problem, because it is physics based and DOE’s research portfolio is predominantly physics research.
The hearing was quite informative and completely free of political rancor. All the Representatives present asked insightful questions, and they walked away with a greater understanding of the challenges and promises of high performance computing. Hopefully this will translate into some good legislation down the road from the Science Committee.
On Tuesday January 27th, the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, & Technology Committee held it’s first hearing of the 114th Congress. The topic was expanding cyber threats and cybersecurity, and the subcommittee heard from experts from both the private sector and government agencies. Assistant Director of CISE, Jim Kurose, testifying for the first time in his new position, told the subcommittee that sustained investment in basic research is need to combat these threats and that it is a socio-technological issue that requires involvement from behavioral researchers as well.
Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Comstock (R-VA) opened the hearing making the point that, “advances in technology and the growing nature of every individual’s online presence means cybersecurity needs to become an essential part of our vernacular.” Further elaborating on the threats the country is dealing with, she went on:
Instances of harmful cyber-attacks are reported regularly and expose the very real threats growing in this area. Financial information, medical records, and personal data maintained on computer systems by individuals and organizations continue to be vulnerable. Cyber-attacks on companies like Sony or Target and the U.S. Central Command will not go away and we have to constantly adapt and intercept and stop these threats before they happen and understand where and how they are happening and stay ever vigilant. Utilizing targeted emails, spam, malware, bots and other tools, cyber criminals, “hacktivists” and nation states are attempting to access information technology systems all the time. The defense of these systems relies on professionals who can react to threats and proactively prepare those systems for attack. (Citation)
Ranking Member Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), in his own opening statement, agreed with the chairwoman, saying that, “cybercrimes are ever-increasing. The threats are not only growing in number, but in the level of sophistication.” There was no dissenting opinions from any members of the subcommittee, Democrat or Republican, that cyber threats are real or that the country needs to do more to understand and combat them.
The witnesses for the hearing represented the cybersecurity community quite well. In addition to Dr. Kurose, there was Cheri McGuire , Vice President, Global Government Affairs & Cybersecurity Policy, Symantec Corporation, who shared the insights her company has from their customers and global security network; Charles Romine, Director, Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is the lead agency within the Federal Government in creating standards and distributing best practices throughout the cybersecurity community; Eric A. Fischer, Senior Specialist in Science and Technology, Congressional Research Service, who spoken about the long term challenges and short term needs of the cybersecurity, as well as the Federal role in the field; and Dean Garfield, President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council, who provided the IT industry perspective of what is going within the industry and how Congress can help. You can read their individual testimony on the Science Committee website.
To sum up, all the witnesses agreed that what was most needed is a sustained investment in basic research for cybersecurity, as well as research into how people interact/use cybersecurity technology. As Dr. Kurose put it, any solutions will be “socio-technical” ones; behavioral research is needed just as much as the physical science research. As well, more interactions between Federal agencies, particularly NIST, and industry is needed in order to get the latest information on threats and best practices. This was brought up, not so much because there is bad or no interaction now (many witnesses stated the opposite; NIST was highly praised by both witnesses and members of the subcommittee) but that the threats change so quickly, necessitating close communication.
Many of the questions asked by committee members showed an interest and a realization of the challenges in cybersecurity. Chairwoman Comstock asked all the witnesses on how Congress should engage their constituents on this matter; the general response being that everyday people need to take this issue seriously and use the security tools that are available. Ranking Member Lipinski asked Mr. Garfield of the IT Industry Council if there is anything different that should be done within the Federal government R&D portfolio; the response was nothing new needs to be done but adequate funding is needed. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) asked about the status of research to get “beyond the password;” Mr. Garfield pointed out that many new security features and technology is already being deployed into the marketplace. There were even questions about how threats to personal information, such as fraudulent credit card usage, are tracked; this certainly demonstrated the everyday concerns for regular people that can dominate this discussion.
All in all, it was a very informative hearing. One gets the sense that the members of Congress walked away with a good picture of the threats and what is being done about it. And aside from a few off-topic political questions, there was no grandstanding or disagreement (something that is becoming rarer on the committee, sad to say). Hopefully this augurs well for the coming year and this topic specifically.
We’re entering the final stretch for submitting nominations and applications for the 2015 Leadership in Science Policy workshop. The deadline is this Friday, January 23rd; we’ll be letting those who are selected know by February 2nd. If you know of someone who meets the qualifications and you would like to nominate them, or if you have already been nominated, now is your chance. Don’t miss out on this chance to learn about science policy from experts in the field.
If you are an upper-class undergrad, or are in grad school, and you’ve always been interested in science policy, but didn’t know where to begin, then do we have a lead for you! The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has brought together for a second year, a coalition of scientific and engineering societies, universities, and academic organizations to create a program to introduce science policy and advocacy to the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Called CASE, which stands for Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering, it is a chance for upper-class undergraduates and graduate students in the science, mathematics, and engineering disciplines to take part in a three-and-a-half day workshop in Washington DC in the spring of 2015 (April 12-15). Students will learn about:
“the structure and organization of Congress, the federal budget and appropriations processes, and tools for effective science communication and civic engagement. In addition, students will participate in interactive seminars about policy-making and communication. By the end of the workshop students will have an opportunity to learn about ways to remain engaged through on-campus activities.” (See more here.)
Additionally, students will participate in teams after the workshop to conduct meetings with their Members of Congress and congressional staff to put what they learned to use. It’s a great chance to learn why things happen in Washington and if it’s something you’d want to consider for a career.
How can you get involved? Well it’s a sponsoring process: each student must be sponsored by a university or professional society, and institutions may send one to two students. Sponsoring institutions are responsible for a $100.00 registration fee per student, as well as all associated travel and lodging costs. The deadline is February 6th; space is limited and it is first-come, first-served.
This sounds very similar to CRA’s LiSPI workshop, only geared to students. And it is providing a valuable tool to the science community, as often there is a disconnect between what goes on in Washington and how that impacts those in the science community (and what the science community can do about it). This helps bridge that natural disconnect. While CRA isn’t participating specifically in CASE, the groups who are organizing it are some of the best in the science policy world of Washington. If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to apply.
While the Consumer Electronics Show (or CES) has a reputation for announcing hot new products, once and awhile other really important news gets announced too. On January 6th, Intel announced at CES 2015 that they were making a major investment to improve representation of women and under-represented minorities both within their own company and the larger community.
Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, announced the company will spend $300 million on a new “Diversity in Technology” initiative. In addition, Krzanich said that Intel’s workforce will fully represent women and under-represented minorities by 2020 by setting new hiring and retention goals. The money will also go to “build a pipeline of female and under-represented engineers and computer scientists,” and, “to fund programs to support more positive representation within the technology and gaming industries.”
Krzanich is quoted as saying:
We’re calling on our industry to again make the seemingly impossible possible by making a commitment to real change and clarity in our goals…Without a workforce that more closely mirrors the population, we are missing opportunities, including not understanding and designing for our own customers.
This is a bold step. Improving diversity in the computing community is vital to the future of the field and is, simply put, the right course of action (which Krzanich also noted in his remarks at CES). The fact that such a prominent player in the technology industry is taking this action is great news and hopefully it is a sign of a sea-change within the computing industry and community regarding diversity in the workplace.
Just wanted to put up a quick post that due to extra availability we are extending the deadline for nominations and applications to the 2015 Leadership in Science Policy Institute workshop (aka: LiSPI) to January 23rd. We have also pushed back notifying selectees to February 2nd. If you know of someone who meets the qualifications and you would like to nominate them, or if you were nominated but missed the deadline to get in your application, now is your chance.
With the Fiscal Year 2015 budget finally settled, and a new calendar year ahead of us, the question becomes what will the new 114th Congress, which was sworn into office on Monday, look like and how will they operate? As you will recall, the Republican Party now has a majority of 54 seats in the Senate, and they were able to increase their majority in the House. How will a fully Republican Congress work together with a Democratic President? Probably badly.
The President will no longer have the buffer of a Democratic Senate to help blunt some of the attacks Republicans are sure to level at his priorities. How will this impact the operations of the government? Republicans will push more strictly Republican priorities through Congress, though the rules of the Senate still give the minority some influence in that process. Whether those priorities will get through the bottleneck of the Senate depends on some potential culture and procedural changes in the chamber, but it’s likely that at least some Republican legislation will be sent to the President’s desk. The President has only deployed his veto twice during his administration, but it’s likely to get more of a workout over the next two years.
One obvious concern for the computing community is whether there will be another government shutdown. While Republican leadership has insisted there won’t, there’s certainly a faction of the party that sees shut downs as a legitimate tool to make progress on policy goals. Whether there will be a shut down then comes down to whether the leadership can keep a tight grip on party unity in the wake of some big decisions — like another increase to the debt limit — in the coming months.
But assuming that the Republicans are able to stay united (maybe a big assumption), and put legislation on the President’s desk, how can they be sure he will sign it? There are two ways to do this. The first is to make the legislation bipartisan. This route is less likely, as the Republican’s mid-term mandate was built on being in opposition to the President. That leaves the second option, which is attaching veto-likely bills to must pass legislation, such as defense spending or something similar. The idea is to force the President to sign the legislation into law or risk taking all the political heat for vetoing it. That includes any potential shutdown if they can’t agree on a bill.
Additionally, any authorizing bills (aka: policy bills) that Congress passes will likely be very Republican in nature. For example, we can expect the FIRST Act to be reintroduced. However, we won’t know in what form it will be reintroduced; will it be exactly as it was when it passed the House floor this year, or will it be even more onerous in nature? And how will it fare in a Republican Senate? And if it does pass Congress, will the President expend political capital to veto it?
There are a large number of unknowns coming into the 2015 calendar year. Right now, the policy community of Washington is divided on the possibilities of another shut down and how much, if at all, the Republicans will change the Senate. Only time will tell. As always, we will be monitoring Congress all year, so be sure to follow developments on the Policy Blog.
Tonight the House narrowly passed an omnibus FY15 appropriations measure that would fund 11 of 12 annual appropriations bills and provide stop-gap funding for the 12th (the Homeland Security bill), a move that would provide increases for the National Science Foundation and for key computing programs at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The Senate must still approve the bill. The Federal government continues to operate under a “continuing resolution” that expires at midnight tonight (Thursday, Dec. 11th). Because it’s likely the Senate won’t complete their work by then, the House is prepared to pass a two-day extension of the CR to give the Senate additional time.
The $1.1 trillion spending bill faced opposition from Democrats and conservative Republicans (for different reasons) and almost failed to pass a procedural vote in the House earlier in the afternoon after a group of conservative Republicans voted against the rule that would allow the bill to be considered on the House floor. The group was concerned that spending cuts in the bill didn’t go far enough and did nothing to block the President’s recent actions on immigration. Some arm-twisting of Democrats by President Obama secured enough votes for the measure to pass it 219-206.
Here are a few items of interest to the computing research community in the 1600 page bill:
The National Science Foundation would receive an increase of $172 million, or about 2.4 percent over its FY14 budget. The House had approved a slightly larger increase (3.3 percent) in its version of the Commerce Justice, Science Appropriations Act passed earlier this year and the Senate appropriations committee had approved a slightly lower increase (1.2 percent) in its version. The final bill doesn’t quite split the difference. The bill would bring the agency’s total budget to $7.3 billion, $89 million more than the President requested for FY15. From the additional funding the committee wants more work targeted at “advanced manufacturing, and for research in cybersecurity and cyber-infrastructure” and $21 million in new funding for the NSF’s activities in the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative, including work in computational models, visualization techniques, innovative technologies and “the underlying data and data infrastructure needed to transform our understanding of these areas.”
While not as big as win as outgoing House CJS Chair Frank Wolf had hoped for the agency, the $172 million increase still represents a win given the flat or declining funding many other important programs received in the bill.
The bill holds Dept. of Energy’s Office of Science flat — it would receive the same funding as in FY14. Despite the flat funding for the office, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would receive a $62 million increase, matching the agency request for FY15. In fact, ASCR joins the Fusion Research program as the only two Office of Science programs called out for increases in the bill. Included in the ASCR funding is $91 million for the Department’s Exascale computing efforts; $104 million for Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility; $80 million for Argonne LCF; $75 million for NERSC; and $3 million for the Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship program, a program CRA joined with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in both 2013 and 2014 to urge Congress to continue. (And they have.)
ARPA-E would remain flat-funded.
NIST would receive a slight bump. NIST’s Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account would increase to $675.5 million in FY15. Included in that is $15 million for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, up to $60.7 million for cybersecurity R&D; $4 million for cybersecurity education; and $16.5 million for the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.
Defense Department Basic Research (6.1) would increase $112 million over FY14 to $2.28 billion; Applied Research (6.2) would dip $38 million below FY14 to $4.61 billion; and Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would increase $155 million to $5.53 billion. DARPA would increase $136 million to $2.91 billion in FY15.
For those interested in perusing what is being called the “Cromnibus” (continuing resolution (CR) + omnibus…sigh) here’s a link to the legislative language and all the agreed upon explanatory statements. With the House passage, it’s likely the Senate will follow suit — if not by the midnight Thursday deadline, then by midnight Saturday under an extended CR. If Senate passage isn’t possible, it’s thought the GOP leadership might opt for a 3 month CR extension. But I think the expectation at this point is for passage in the Senate and a quick signature from the President.
As part of its mission to develop a next generation of leaders in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announces the third offering of the CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), intended to educate computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works. We seek nominations for participants.
LiSPI will be centered around a two day workshop to be held April 27-28, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Full details of LiSPI are available at: https://cra.org/ccc/spi.)
LiSPI will feature presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel about mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. A tentative agenda is viewable from the link above. LiSPI participants are expected to
Complete a reading assignment and a short written homework prior to attending the workshop, so that time spent at the workshop can focus on more advanced content,
Attend the April 27-28th workshop, which includes breakfast both days, lunch, and a reception with the speakers and invited guests at the conclusion of the first day, and
Complete a small-group assignment afterwards that puts to use the workshop content on a CCC-inspired problem–perhaps writing an argument in favor of particular initiative for an agency audience, or drafting sample testimony on a CCC topic.
LiSPI is not intended for individuals who wish to undertake research on science policy, become science policy fellows, or take permanent positions in Washington, DC. Rather, we are trying to reach work-a-day academics who appreciate that our field must be engaged in helping government.
The CCC will provide funds for hotel accommodations for two nights of local expenses (hotel, meals) for the April 27-28 workshop. Nominees are expected to pay their own travel expenses, though there will be a limited fund available for participants who cannot attend unless their travel is provided.
Eligibility and Nomination Process
LiSPI participants are expected to have the experience and flexibility in their current positions to engage with government. University faculty members should be from CS or IS departments and be post-tenure; industrial researchers should have comparable seniority. Participants should be adept at communicating. They must be nominated by their chair or department head and must have demonstrated an interest in science policy, especially as it relates to computer science (and closely allied fields).
Specifically, the nomination process is as follows:
A chair or department head proposes a LiSPI candidate by visiting the nomination page and providing the name and institution of the nominee, along with a letter of recommendation.
The candidate will then be contacted by the CCC and asked to submit a CV, a short essay detailing their interests in science policy, and an indication of whether they would require financial aid to attend.
All nominations and material from nominators and nominees must be received by December 22, 2014.
Selection Process
The LiSPI selection committee will evaluate each nomination based on record of accomplishment, proven ability to communicate, and promise. Selections will be announced by January 15, 2015. We plan to open the workshop to 60 participants.
Please discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would be interested in participating, and submit nominations!
Organizing Committee:
Fred B. Schneider, Cornell
Chair, CRA Government Affairs Committee
Peter Harsha, CRA
Director of Government Affairs
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Dept of Energy FY16 Request: Very Good but Will Congress Approve?
/In: FY16 Appropriations, Policy /by Brian MosleyPresident Obama released his annual budget request on Monday February 2nd (interesting note: Fiscal Year 2016 is the first time his administration released the budget on time). As we have done in years past, the CRA Policy Blog will be doing a series of posts on the assorted budget requests for key science agencies, particularly highlighting the ones that are of importance to the computing community. Check back for more agencies.
First up is the Department of Energy (DOE). The two key parts of DOE for the computing community are the Office of Science (SC), home of most of the agency’s basic research support, and ARPA-E. For SC, the office would see a very healthy increase of 5.4 percent from FY15 to FY16 (going from $5.07B to $5.34B). Seeing as the agency has limped through the Sequestration era with up-and-down budgets, this request is very good.
Perhaps most important for computing researchers is the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. ASCR would see a huge increase in funding, going up by 14.8 percent (or $541M in FY15 to $621M in FY16). Most of the justification for this increase (~$87M) is set aside for the exascale computing initiative. In fact, Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz said that exascale computing, both hardware and software, is a “top priority across the Office of Science.” Some other details from ASCR’s request are that their user facilities are operating, “optimally and with >90% availability;” and “deployment of 10-40 petaflop upgrade at NERSC and continued preparation for 75-200 petaflop upgrades at the Leadership Computing Facilities” continue. Also, the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship is restored at $10M to, “fully fund a new cohort.” (You’ll recall we joined with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) to call on Congress to preserve the CS Grad Fellowship program.)
Digging a little deeper, the majority of the ASCR increase — $77.5M — is provided for the High Performance Computing and Networking Facilities (HPCF) subaccount. The Mathematical, Computational, and Computer Sciences Research subaccount would receive a more modest increase of $2.5M.
As for ARPA-E (or Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), it would see the same increase the President requested last year: 16.1 percent (or $280M in FY15 to $325M in FY16). The agency, “advances high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment.” This increase has become something of a tradition for ARPA-E, where the White House recommends a significant increase but Congress decides to flat fund the agency. There are few indications that this dynamic will change with this budget.
The big question now is will Congress pass this request? While it is true that support for computing research is widespread and bipartisan, it is still unlikely that this budget will breeze through the legislative process. For starters, throughout his request, the President has rejected funding levels called for by the budget deal that brought us sequestration, or the mandatory, across-the-board budget cuts, that are still US law. In rolling back sequestration, Obama is making an argument that the country is coming out of the recession and that these cuts need to be replaced with something more targeted. It’s unlikely that the Republican-controlled Congress shares that view. In addition to the sequestration rollback, it’s likely that congressional Republicans will have a different set of priorities within the Dept of Energy budget about things like climate change, sustainable energy, and clean coal programs, and those will require adjustments throughout the proposed budget to accommodate. So chances are very good that the final FY16 budget for DOE will look very little like the President’s request. But there appears to be strong bipartisan support for DOE computing programs (see, for example, last week’s hearing), and ASCR has recently fared well even when other aspects of the Office of Science budget have been flat-funded (or worse). So perhaps a little cautious optimism is warranted.
We’ll be watching this budget, and the other science agencies’ budgets, as they progress through Congress this year. Check back for more updates.
“If we want to out compete, we have to out compute,” witnesses tell Congressional Science Committee
/In: Misc., People, Policy /by Brian MosleyOn Wednesday January 28th, the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing on, “Supercomputing and American Technology Leadership.” The witnesses that were called, who spanned the public and private sectors in high performance computing (HPC), gave the simple message that in order to out compete other nations, America needs to out compute them. And that calls for sustained funding for supercomputing resources and research.
The hearing was opened by Subcommittee Chairman Randy Weber (R-TX), who, in his opening statement, said that, “it is our job in Congress to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, on innovative research that is in the national interest, and provides the best chance for broad impact and long-term success. The basic research conducted within the ASCR program (the Department of Energy’s Advanced Scientific Computing and Research program) clearly meets this requirement.” He elaborated by saying, “high performance computing can lead to scientific discoveries, economic growth, and will maintain America’s leadership in science and technology.” Science Committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), in her own opening statement, echoed much the same points, saying, “public policies play a critical role in supporting the advancement of high performance computing, and in enabling our society and economy to directly benefit from this capability.” She pointed out that, “the U.S. currently hosts more than 45% of the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world,” and that, “as we enter the world of ‘big data’, where thousands of devices all around us are generating millions of bytes of data to be analyzed, high performance computing is needed not just by scientists and government researchers, but by many civic and commercial enterprises as well.”
The panel of witnesses was a venerable who’s-who of high performance computing and science policy. They included Norman Augustine, board member of the Bipartisan Policy Center and an “old sage” of the science policy community (long time readers of this blog will recognize him as the co-chair of the National Academies study “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”); Roscoe Giles, Chairman of the DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee, who spoke on what is happening at ASCR; Dave Turek, Vice President, Technical Computing, at IBM, who gave the industry perspective for HPC and insight into the long-term challenges the field is facing; and James Crowley, Executive Director of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), who gave the perspective from the scientific community. You can read their testimony in full on the House Science Committee website.
The witnesses agreed that America needs to increase their investment in supercomputing. In response to a question from Ranking Member Johnson about how he would make the case to lawmakers to increase funding for research, Mr. Augustine said that in order to compete with other countries, we have to be faster at applying research to the economy and the best way to do that is through improved computing. Vice-chairman Dan Newhouse (R-WA) asked what Congress could do to remove barriers to allow the DOE National Laboratories to be able to better transfer research to industries; Mr. Augustine pointed out that much of industry doesn’t know what’s going on at the national labs and that he has found the best way to transfer knowledge is to move people. While Mr. Augustine understood the need to have tight conflict of interest laws, encouraging more movement of scientists between labs and industry would help speed up the transfer of research. Finally, a question from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on what the next step beyond the use of silicon in computers could be; Mr. Turek pointed out that we have reached the limits of silicon and there is no single solution to this problem. The only option is more research to find more options. Dr. Giles, in response to Rep. Massie’s question, also pointed out that ASCR, and the Department of Energy as a whole, is in an excellent position tackle this problem, because it is physics based and DOE’s research portfolio is predominantly physics research.
The hearing was quite informative and completely free of political rancor. All the Representatives present asked insightful questions, and they walked away with a greater understanding of the challenges and promises of high performance computing. Hopefully this will translate into some good legislation down the road from the Science Committee.
Sustained investment in research is needed to combat cyber threats, CISE AD tells Congress
/In: Cybersecurity R&D Highlights, People, Policy, Research /by Brian MosleyOn Tuesday January 27th, the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, & Technology Committee held it’s first hearing of the 114th Congress. The topic was expanding cyber threats and cybersecurity, and the subcommittee heard from experts from both the private sector and government agencies. Assistant Director of CISE, Jim Kurose, testifying for the first time in his new position, told the subcommittee that sustained investment in basic research is need to combat these threats and that it is a socio-technological issue that requires involvement from behavioral researchers as well.
Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Comstock (R-VA) opened the hearing making the point that, “advances in technology and the growing nature of every individual’s online presence means cybersecurity needs to become an essential part of our vernacular.” Further elaborating on the threats the country is dealing with, she went on:
Ranking Member Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), in his own opening statement, agreed with the chairwoman, saying that, “cybercrimes are ever-increasing. The threats are not only growing in number, but in the level of sophistication.” There was no dissenting opinions from any members of the subcommittee, Democrat or Republican, that cyber threats are real or that the country needs to do more to understand and combat them.
The witnesses for the hearing represented the cybersecurity community quite well. In addition to Dr. Kurose, there was Cheri McGuire , Vice President, Global Government Affairs & Cybersecurity Policy, Symantec Corporation, who shared the insights her company has from their customers and global security network; Charles Romine, Director, Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is the lead agency within the Federal Government in creating standards and distributing best practices throughout the cybersecurity community; Eric A. Fischer, Senior Specialist in Science and Technology, Congressional Research Service, who spoken about the long term challenges and short term needs of the cybersecurity, as well as the Federal role in the field; and Dean Garfield, President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council, who provided the IT industry perspective of what is going within the industry and how Congress can help. You can read their individual testimony on the Science Committee website.
To sum up, all the witnesses agreed that what was most needed is a sustained investment in basic research for cybersecurity, as well as research into how people interact/use cybersecurity technology. As Dr. Kurose put it, any solutions will be “socio-technical” ones; behavioral research is needed just as much as the physical science research. As well, more interactions between Federal agencies, particularly NIST, and industry is needed in order to get the latest information on threats and best practices. This was brought up, not so much because there is bad or no interaction now (many witnesses stated the opposite; NIST was highly praised by both witnesses and members of the subcommittee) but that the threats change so quickly, necessitating close communication.
Many of the questions asked by committee members showed an interest and a realization of the challenges in cybersecurity. Chairwoman Comstock asked all the witnesses on how Congress should engage their constituents on this matter; the general response being that everyday people need to take this issue seriously and use the security tools that are available. Ranking Member Lipinski asked Mr. Garfield of the IT Industry Council if there is anything different that should be done within the Federal government R&D portfolio; the response was nothing new needs to be done but adequate funding is needed. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) asked about the status of research to get “beyond the password;” Mr. Garfield pointed out that many new security features and technology is already being deployed into the marketplace. There were even questions about how threats to personal information, such as fraudulent credit card usage, are tracked; this certainly demonstrated the everyday concerns for regular people that can dominate this discussion.
All in all, it was a very informative hearing. One gets the sense that the members of Congress walked away with a good picture of the threats and what is being done about it. And aside from a few off-topic political questions, there was no grandstanding or disagreement (something that is becoming rarer on the committee, sad to say). Hopefully this augurs well for the coming year and this topic specifically.
Photo by CERDEC
Reminder: LiSPI Deadline is this Friday the 23rd!
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), People /by Brian MosleyWe’re entering the final stretch for submitting nominations and applications for the 2015 Leadership in Science Policy workshop. The deadline is this Friday, January 23rd; we’ll be letting those who are selected know by February 2nd. If you know of someone who meets the qualifications and you would like to nominate them, or if you have already been nominated, now is your chance. Don’t miss out on this chance to learn about science policy from experts in the field.
AAAS is making the “CASE” for undergrads & grad students to be science advocates!
/In: Misc., People, Policy /by Brian MosleyIf you are an upper-class undergrad, or are in grad school, and you’ve always been interested in science policy, but didn’t know where to begin, then do we have a lead for you! The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has brought together for a second year, a coalition of scientific and engineering societies, universities, and academic organizations to create a program to introduce science policy and advocacy to the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Called CASE, which stands for Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering, it is a chance for upper-class undergraduates and graduate students in the science, mathematics, and engineering disciplines to take part in a three-and-a-half day workshop in Washington DC in the spring of 2015 (April 12-15). Students will learn about:
Additionally, students will participate in teams after the workshop to conduct meetings with their Members of Congress and congressional staff to put what they learned to use. It’s a great chance to learn why things happen in Washington and if it’s something you’d want to consider for a career.
How can you get involved? Well it’s a sponsoring process: each student must be sponsored by a university or professional society, and institutions may send one to two students. Sponsoring institutions are responsible for a $100.00 registration fee per student, as well as all associated travel and lodging costs. The deadline is February 6th; space is limited and it is first-come, first-served.
This sounds very similar to CRA’s LiSPI workshop, only geared to students. And it is providing a valuable tool to the science community, as often there is a disconnect between what goes on in Washington and how that impacts those in the science community (and what the science community can do about it). This helps bridge that natural disconnect. While CRA isn’t participating specifically in CASE, the groups who are organizing it are some of the best in the science policy world of Washington. If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to apply.
Intel Announces Major Effort to Improve Diversity in the Computing Community
/In: Diversity in Computing, Misc., People /by Brian MosleyWhile the Consumer Electronics Show (or CES) has a reputation for announcing hot new products, once and awhile other really important news gets announced too. On January 6th, Intel announced at CES 2015 that they were making a major investment to improve representation of women and under-represented minorities both within their own company and the larger community.
Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, announced the company will spend $300 million on a new “Diversity in Technology” initiative. In addition, Krzanich said that Intel’s workforce will fully represent women and under-represented minorities by 2020 by setting new hiring and retention goals. The money will also go to “build a pipeline of female and under-represented engineers and computer scientists,” and, “to fund programs to support more positive representation within the technology and gaming industries.”
Krzanich is quoted as saying:
Intel plans to partner with a number of other organizations in the industry to support the initiative. The ones announced are International Game Developers Association, the E-Sports League, the National Center for Women in Technology, the CyberSmile Foundation, the Feminist Frequency, and Rainbow PUSH.
This is a bold step. Improving diversity in the computing community is vital to the future of the field and is, simply put, the right course of action (which Krzanich also noted in his remarks at CES). The fact that such a prominent player in the technology industry is taking this action is great news and hopefully it is a sign of a sea-change within the computing industry and community regarding diversity in the workplace.
DEADLINE EXTENDED: Applications to 2015 LiSPI now accepted till January 23rd
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), People, Policy /by Brian MosleyJust wanted to put up a quick post that due to extra availability we are extending the deadline for nominations and applications to the 2015 Leadership in Science Policy Institute workshop (aka: LiSPI) to January 23rd. We have also pushed back notifying selectees to February 2nd. If you know of someone who meets the qualifications and you would like to nominate them, or if you were nominated but missed the deadline to get in your application, now is your chance.
For some more background, check out the LiSPI webpage and our original post on this year’s workshop.
2015 Outlook: What do we know, and what are we thinking of, the 114th Congress?
/In: FY16 Appropriations, Policy /by Brian MosleyWith the Fiscal Year 2015 budget finally settled, and a new calendar year ahead of us, the question becomes what will the new 114th Congress, which was sworn into office on Monday, look like and how will they operate? As you will recall, the Republican Party now has a majority of 54 seats in the Senate, and they were able to increase their majority in the House. How will a fully Republican Congress work together with a Democratic President? Probably badly.
The President will no longer have the buffer of a Democratic Senate to help blunt some of the attacks Republicans are sure to level at his priorities. How will this impact the operations of the government? Republicans will push more strictly Republican priorities through Congress, though the rules of the Senate still give the minority some influence in that process. Whether those priorities will get through the bottleneck of the Senate depends on some potential culture and procedural changes in the chamber, but it’s likely that at least some Republican legislation will be sent to the President’s desk. The President has only deployed his veto twice during his administration, but it’s likely to get more of a workout over the next two years.
One obvious concern for the computing community is whether there will be another government shutdown. While Republican leadership has insisted there won’t, there’s certainly a faction of the party that sees shut downs as a legitimate tool to make progress on policy goals. Whether there will be a shut down then comes down to whether the leadership can keep a tight grip on party unity in the wake of some big decisions — like another increase to the debt limit — in the coming months.
But assuming that the Republicans are able to stay united (maybe a big assumption), and put legislation on the President’s desk, how can they be sure he will sign it? There are two ways to do this. The first is to make the legislation bipartisan. This route is less likely, as the Republican’s mid-term mandate was built on being in opposition to the President. That leaves the second option, which is attaching veto-likely bills to must pass legislation, such as defense spending or something similar. The idea is to force the President to sign the legislation into law or risk taking all the political heat for vetoing it. That includes any potential shutdown if they can’t agree on a bill.
Additionally, any authorizing bills (aka: policy bills) that Congress passes will likely be very Republican in nature. For example, we can expect the FIRST Act to be reintroduced. However, we won’t know in what form it will be reintroduced; will it be exactly as it was when it passed the House floor this year, or will it be even more onerous in nature? And how will it fare in a Republican Senate? And if it does pass Congress, will the President expend political capital to veto it?
There are a large number of unknowns coming into the 2015 calendar year. Right now, the policy community of Washington is divided on the possibilities of another shut down and how much, if at all, the Republicans will change the Senate. Only time will tell. As always, we will be monitoring Congress all year, so be sure to follow developments on the Policy Blog.
“Cromnibus” Would Boost NSF, DOE Computing, DARPA and DOD Basic Research
/In: Funding, FY15 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaTonight the House narrowly passed an omnibus FY15 appropriations measure that would fund 11 of 12 annual appropriations bills and provide stop-gap funding for the 12th (the Homeland Security bill), a move that would provide increases for the National Science Foundation and for key computing programs at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The Senate must still approve the bill. The Federal government continues to operate under a “continuing resolution” that expires at midnight tonight (Thursday, Dec. 11th). Because it’s likely the Senate won’t complete their work by then, the House is prepared to pass a two-day extension of the CR to give the Senate additional time.
The $1.1 trillion spending bill faced opposition from Democrats and conservative Republicans (for different reasons) and almost failed to pass a procedural vote in the House earlier in the afternoon after a group of conservative Republicans voted against the rule that would allow the bill to be considered on the House floor. The group was concerned that spending cuts in the bill didn’t go far enough and did nothing to block the President’s recent actions on immigration. Some arm-twisting of Democrats by President Obama secured enough votes for the measure to pass it 219-206.
Here are a few items of interest to the computing research community in the 1600 page bill:
The National Science Foundation would receive an increase of $172 million, or about 2.4 percent over its FY14 budget. The House had approved a slightly larger increase (3.3 percent) in its version of the Commerce Justice, Science Appropriations Act passed earlier this year and the Senate appropriations committee had approved a slightly lower increase (1.2 percent) in its version. The final bill doesn’t quite split the difference. The bill would bring the agency’s total budget to $7.3 billion, $89 million more than the President requested for FY15. From the additional funding the committee wants more work targeted at “advanced manufacturing, and for research in cybersecurity and cyber-infrastructure” and $21 million in new funding for the NSF’s activities in the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative, including work in computational models, visualization techniques, innovative technologies and “the underlying data and data infrastructure needed to transform our understanding of these areas.”
While not as big as win as outgoing House CJS Chair Frank Wolf had hoped for the agency, the $172 million increase still represents a win given the flat or declining funding many other important programs received in the bill.
The bill holds Dept. of Energy’s Office of Science flat — it would receive the same funding as in FY14. Despite the flat funding for the office, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would receive a $62 million increase, matching the agency request for FY15. In fact, ASCR joins the Fusion Research program as the only two Office of Science programs called out for increases in the bill. Included in the ASCR funding is $91 million for the Department’s Exascale computing efforts; $104 million for Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility; $80 million for Argonne LCF; $75 million for NERSC; and $3 million for the Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship program, a program CRA joined with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in both 2013 and 2014 to urge Congress to continue. (And they have.)
ARPA-E would remain flat-funded.
NIST would receive a slight bump. NIST’s Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account would increase to $675.5 million in FY15. Included in that is $15 million for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, up to $60.7 million for cybersecurity R&D; $4 million for cybersecurity education; and $16.5 million for the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.
For those interested in perusing what is being called the “Cromnibus” (continuing resolution (CR) + omnibus…sigh) here’s a link to the legislative language and all the agreed upon explanatory statements. With the House passage, it’s likely the Senate will follow suit — if not by the midnight Thursday deadline, then by midnight Saturday under an extended CR. If Senate passage isn’t possible, it’s thought the GOP leadership might opt for a 3 month CR extension. But I think the expectation at this point is for passage in the Senate and a quick signature from the President.
Whatever happens, we’ll bring you the details!
Photo by BrownGuacamole
Get Schooled on Science Policy: LiSPI Call for Nominations Now Open!
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), People, Policy /by Peter HarshaLiSPI will be centered around a two day workshop to be held April 27-28, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Full details of LiSPI are available at: https://cra.org/ccc/spi.)
LiSPI will feature presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel about mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. A tentative agenda is viewable from the link above. LiSPI participants are expected to
LiSPI is not intended for individuals who wish to undertake research on science policy, become science policy fellows, or take permanent positions in Washington, DC. Rather, we are trying to reach work-a-day academics who appreciate that our field must be engaged in helping government.
The CCC will provide funds for hotel accommodations for two nights of local expenses (hotel, meals) for the April 27-28 workshop. Nominees are expected to pay their own travel expenses, though there will be a limited fund available for participants who cannot attend unless their travel is provided.
Eligibility and Nomination Process
LiSPI participants are expected to have the experience and flexibility in their current positions to engage with government. University faculty members should be from CS or IS departments and be post-tenure; industrial researchers should have comparable seniority. Participants should be adept at communicating. They must be nominated by their chair or department head and must have demonstrated an interest in science policy, especially as it relates to computer science (and closely allied fields).
Specifically, the nomination process is as follows:
All nominations and material from nominators and nominees must be received by December 22, 2014.
Selection Process
The LiSPI selection committee will evaluate each nomination based on record of accomplishment, proven ability to communicate, and promise. Selections will be announced by January 15, 2015. We plan to open the workshop to 60 participants.
Please discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would be interested in participating, and submit nominations!
Organizing Committee:
Fred B. Schneider, Cornell
Chair, CRA Government Affairs Committee
Peter Harsha, CRA
Director of Government Affairs