Before I begin I would like to thank Dr. John Marburger and Floyd Kvamme for their leadership of this important group. Your counsel is of vital importance as we push forward with the process of exploration and discovery, particularly where America’s future energy needs are concerned.

 

You know, I still look at things through the eyes of an engineer. Before I entered the business world I studied to be a chemical engineer under a National Science Foundation fellowship and then taught engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But for all I have achieved in life, I have never forgotten how important science, technology and good old- fashioned engineering are to the U.S. economy.  Those of us in government appreciate how groups such as yours give us access to some of the nation’s best minds as we look to technology and science for the ability to shape our future. 

 

The task before us, as the President said in the State of the Union, is to develop technologies that will change the way we power our homes, our businesses and our transportation sector.  This requires, among other things, a significant investment in basic science research and in programs to train and educate the next generation of innovators and inventors: the scientists, mathematicians, chemist, engineers and others who will find ways for us to further develop and commercialize energy alternatives.

 

To do this, as Dr. Marburger discussed earlier in greater detail, the President has proposed an American Competitiveness Initiative, an effort in which the Energy Department plays a leading role. Under the ACI, the President has asked Congress for a 14 percent increase in the 2007 budget for the Office of Science and, along with other physical science research, some $50 billion in new spending over the next decade.

 

The ACI is the significant investment needed to produce transformational technologies to help us achieve the President’s goals. It will strengthen the foundation of our economy because it strengthens the foundations of science and science education. It cannot be said often enough: basic scientific research leads to innovations that improve people’s lives. And science, as I have said many times, is a core mission of the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

Many people are not aware that the Department’s Office of Science is the largest funder of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. Currently, Dr. Ray Orbach, former Chancellor of the University of California at Riverside, is the Director of the Office.  Dr. Orbach has done an outstanding job and because of it, has been nominated to serve as the Under Secretary of Science, a new position created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  The person in this new position will serve as an advisor on science policy as well as on the scientific aspects of all we do at DOE, from basic research, to nuclear energy, to the environmental cleanup of our Cold War legacy sites.  Dr. Orbach’s extensive experience as a laboratory scientist and a skilled administrator make him the perfect person to lead DOE’s efforts to maintain and enhance the strong tradition of cutting edge discovery for which DOE’s Office of Science is known.

 

To date, the Department of Energy and the scientific research it has underwritten helped develop the Internet, accelerated the speed of civilian supercomputers and made them available for scientific research and industrial design, pioneered the human genome project and produced countless energy saving devices including high-storage capacity lithium batteries and superconducting wires.

 

We helped develop the MRI, one of modern medicine’s most powerful diagnostic tools, and helped America become the world’s leader in nuclear medicine. And now, through work under way at five of our national labs, we are developing an artificial retina that could someday be used to restore sight to those suffering blindness caused by macular degeneration and other eye diseases.

 

And, as you might expect, our people are hard at work looking for innovations in energy technology. As one example, consider that when the President said the United States would "fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass," he was talking about the work we are doing at the Department of Energy. Advances in molecular science and computing have made it possible for us to think about complex microbes as a potential alternative energy source. Right now, Department of Energy funded researchers are attempting to program microbes to produce hydrogen or ethanol from agricultural waste materials.

 

Our personnel and contractors and our national labs are hard at work on the search for other alternative sources of energy as well as part of the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI).  The AEI significantly increase U.S. investment in fuel and clean energy technologies that should reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  The President has asked for a 22 percent increase in the Department’s budget for 2007 for clean energy research in the following areas:

 

Bio-fuels research and development of bio-refineries. 

Solar – photo-voltaic

R&D in battery technology

Hydrogen and fuel cell technology

Clean coal technologies.

All environmentally-friendly energy sources that promise to be secure alternatives to fossil fuels.

 

It is also clear to those who follow the issue that, with the global demand for electricity alone expected to at least double over the next 25 years… and considering the environmental issues that increase will present … that some of our future power needs will have to be met by clean, safe nuclear power.

 

To do this, the President has called for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, an initiative to encourage the development of clean, safe nuclear power in the United States and around the world to meet growing energy demand in a way that will foster economic development, responsibly manage spent fuel and reduce the risk of proliferation.

 

Globally there over 130 nuclear power reactors under construction or in the planning stages. We must recognize that other countries will and are pursuing and expanding the use of nuclear power even if we do not. The United States has a choice: we can lead the world or we stand by and watch. It is the Administration’s view that the United States will be in a much stronger position to shape the nuclear future if we are part of it, hence GNEP.

 

GNEP allows for an increase in the use of nuclear power while effectively addressing waste and proliferation concerns. It is another example of technology and science showing us the way.

 

GNEP will assist in bringing forth the development of technologies that will allow for the recycling of spent fuel but not separated plutonium, and in the process of developing those technologies, couple them with fast reactors that can consume the spent fuel, helping the world meet at least a portion of the their growing demand for energy safely and in a more environmentally friendly way.

 

GNEP envisions a role for countries with advanced nuclear programs and a role for countries who seek to benefit from nuclear power’s potential as a low-cost source of electricity, as long as they agree to join the partnership and abide by its rules.  Let me be clear on this point: the United States wants to work in a positive way with other nations seeking to develop civilian nuclear power.

 

The American people, the taxpayers, expect more from basic science research than new knowledge alone.  We expect and I believe that the investments being made today will  one day result in countless additional benefits – benefits to our health, our national defense, our productivity and economic expansion, and our energy security.  Our scientific investments have already produced significant results in the technological arena, in medicine and health care, in enhanced economic competitiveness and in the creation of new intellectual capital; all of which have helped improve the American people’s quality of life.

 

We are expanding the frontiers of discovery each and every day. I am certain these efforts will do much to preserve America’s position as the world’s leader in technology, in science, and in the struggle for peace and the spread of democracy. These efforts, as they come to fruition, can elevate our standard of living and add to the comforts of life.

 

The President has put forward ambitious but attainable goals that will lead us to a cleaner, safer and less oil dependent world, and I consider it a privilege to lead these efforts within the Department of Energy.

 

Thank you.