Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Virginia, 1968 Positions: President, National Academy of Engineering, 1996 to present. Descriptive Biography: Dr. Wulf was elected President of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in April 1997; he had previously served as Interim President beginning in July 1996. Together with the National Academy of Sciences, the NAE operates under a congressional charter and presidential executive orders that call on it to provide advice to the government on issues of science and engineering. Dr. Wulf is on leave from the University of Virginia, where he is a University Professor and the AT&T Professor of Engineering and Applied Science. Among his activities at the University were a complete revision of the undergraduate Computer Science curriculum, research on computer architecture and computer security, and an effort to assist humanities scholars exploit information technology. In 1988-90 Dr. Wulf was on leave from the University to be Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) where he headed the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CISE is responsible for computer science and engineering research as well as for operating the National Supercomputer Centers and NSFNET. While at NSF, Dr. Wulf was deeply involved in the development of the High Performance Computing and Communication Initiative and in the formative discussions of the National Information Infrastructure. Prior to joining Virginia, Dr. Wulf founded Tartan Laboratories and served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Before returning to academe, Dr. Wulf grew the company to about a hundred employees. Tartan developed and marketed optimizing compilers, notably for Ada. Tartan was sold to Texas Instruments in 1995. The technical basis for Tartan was research by Dr. Wulf while he was a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, where he was Acting Head of the Department from 1978-1979. At Carnegie-Mellon Dr. Wulf's research spanned programming systems and computer architecture; specific research activities included: the design and implementation of a systems-implementation language (Bliss), architectural design of the DEC PDP-11, the design and construction of a 16 processor multiprocessor and its operating system, a new approach to computer security, and development of a technology for the construction of high quality optimizing compilers. Dr. Wulf also actively participated in the development of Ada, the common DOD programming language for embedded computer applications. While at Carnegie-Mellon and Tartan, Dr. Wulf was active in the "high tech" community in Pittsburgh. He helped found the Pittsburgh High Technology Council and served as Vice President and Director from its creation. He also helped found the CEO Network, the CEO Venture Fund, and served as an advisor to the Western Pennsylvania Advanced Technology Center. In 1983 he was awarded the Enterprise "Man of the Year" Award for these and other activities. Dr. Wulf is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Member of the Academia Espanola De Ingeniera, a Member of the Academy Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Library of Alexandria), and a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a Fellow of five professional societies: the ACM, the IEEE, the AAAS, IEC, and AWIS. He is the author of over 100 papers and technical reports, has written three books, holds two U.S. Patents, and has supervised over 25 Ph.D.s in Computer Science. DISCUSSION Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you for leaving us with some degree of comfort by your closing statement, "By almost any objective, the United States is doing very well at this moment." Guess what? That is not good enough. That might make us feel better, we may be doing very well, but our competition is doing a lot better a lot quicker. So this is serious business. And Dr. Vagelos, you know, you emphasized something that is so very important. Right back to the basics, K-12 science and math education. You know, I am sort of tired of appearing before business groups, as I do frequently, and to get some guy raising his hand, I will call on him, and you know, he starts moaning and groaning about K-12 education and the high schools are graduating students that we can't hire because they can't function, and we have to start training them. And I listen to them moan and groan, and I acknowledge that it is a serious problem we have got to address, and then I will say to him and all of the other representatives of business in the audience, and I did this a couple of times at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and a National Association of Manufacturers, "All right, you hot shots in business. Let me ask you a question." All right. Well, that is sort of unusual. I say, "How many of your employees, Mr. President of this company, Mr. Manager of that company, how many of your employees serve on a local school board?" You know. The answer, usually the response is, "Gee, we don't know." "Go back and check, will you, please? And then, in a couple weeks, let me know." And I never hear back. You know why? They check and they don't run. Well, gee, we are in business to make a profit, and it is too important. And why not have them run for school boards? And then the other thing is, and I am giving you some of my pet theories, but I want to work together, because I want to follow through on this and go forward on this. How many letters do you think the average Member of Congress gets from his or her constituents saying, "You know, we have got to invest more in basic research, as a government," or, "We should do better by the National Science Foundation," which is a primary funder of all university-based research? Do you know how many letters? Probably the average congressperson gets zero. And I doubt if there is a sitting Member of either the House or the Senate who campaigned on doing better by the science enterprise. You know, we have got to reform Social Security. We are going to get out of Iraq. We are going to do all of these things, but they don't talk about these things. And I say, once again, Mr. Augustine, I will say to people like the Chairman of the Board of Lockheed Martin, your former position, "Why don't you look at your Board of Directors?" It reads like a Who's Who in America. All well compensated, all very heavily influential in the political process, some Republican, some Democrat. They are all over the lot. I would suggest that if Board Member X from central Oklahoma or Board Member Y from northern Kansas called up his or her representative and said, "Look. Here is something that Congress is ignoring, and this is very important. You have got to do better by K-12 science and math education, and I don't see how the hell you propose to do so if you are cutting funding for the Education Directorate at the National Science Foundation, and I want you to do something about that." People would begin to take notice. So I don't think this is too daunting a task, and I want to have some follow-through with you guys after this. You know, there are 435. You get 435 master cards, and we can get a file on each Member of Congress. And then we can just sort of work them and figure out how we can get them to focus on this subject area. So with that, a sort of preamble of my speech, let me ask you this. Help us prioritize your recommendations. And help us explain how you decided on a 10 percent increase. Can we go with those two? Mr. Augustine. Mr. AUGUSTINE. Thank you. I will be glad to begin. The question of prioritizing, we feel, quite strongly, that one has to view our recommendations as a package. We did single out as the highest priority K-12, because that seemed to underpin everything we are doing. If we don't solve that problem, we have lost. Beyond that, the reason we view it as a package is, for example, to create more scientists and engineers but to not increase the research budget for them to work on just creates people without jobs. And so this is a closely-knit package that we have proposed. We gathered 60 experts in various fields who came to Washington for two days with us, and they made recommendations as to what we should recommend to you. They made over 150 recommendations, which we boiled down and refined. So what you are seeing is our prioritized list of the very top ones. There were others we didn't consider. Your question of why 10 percent, and you are referring to the increase in basic research in the specific fields. Our motivation was to, rather quickly, increase the budget in those fields, which have been basically flat in real dollars for 20 years. That contrasts sharply with the progress in the biological sciences. So we wanted to do it as quickly as we could, but we also want to be sure the money is spent efficiently. And it is our view that about 10 percent per year, this is obviously judgmental, is about what you can increase and spend very efficiently. It might be 15 percent. It might be eight percent, but it would be in that range. The question of why we put the seven-year limit on it; it turns out, of course, that 10 percent per year for seven years roughly doubles the existing $8 billion budget in this area. That is encouraging to us, and seems rational in the sense that the Congress, with your leadership, recently proposed that the NIH budget be doubled. And the Administration supported that. That was through the authorization process, unfortunately not through the appropriations process. So that would be my answer to your question. I am sorry. Did I say NIH? I meant NSF. Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah. Yeah. It is NSF. Well, you know, we are following the NIH model, and everybody got nervous, because we doubled the NIH budget over five years, and I really think the basic reason is because it does so much in research in things like Alzheimer's and cancer and everything else, and Members couldn't vote fast enough, because they had looked out and said there, but for the grace of God, go I and vote aye. And we ought to do the same thing with the physical sciences and following that model. And a lot of people with biological sciences interested in NIH were concerned that I was trying to cut their funding. I don't want to cut their funding one dime. It is important. But I want to elevate NSF. But the basic problem is, and this is our problem on Capitol Hill. We passed the legislation putting the NSF on a path to double its budget over five years. We had a big ceremony down at the White House. The president signed it, we patted each other on the back. Boy, we felt good. But that didn't appropriate one dime. And while we put the agency on a path with authorization from this committee to double a budget over five years, you know, the percentage increase is a little better than flat, but not a heck of a lot better. You know what the total budget is? I bet you if you asked the board members of Merck or Lockheed Martin or anybody else, what do you think NSF gets. You know, they sponsor, basically, all university-based research in America. They wouldn't know, $5 billion a year. You know what, they spend more than that in a coffee break over in the Pentagon. That is another place you are associated with. And I am for national defense, but we have got to get some priorities in order. My time is expired. Mr. Gordon. Mr. GORDON. As I said earlier, I admire my Chairman's passion for this issue. I am also the beneficiary of, hopefully, some extra time that could be allocated to me over the next few weeks because of all of his passion here. And I do admire it. As the Chairman said, the National Science Foundation, we passed an authorization to double it. It was signed by the President, yet the President never has made those requests. I think one of the benefits of your proposal is that you went beyond flowery rhetoric and gave us some specific recommendations. You also have specific recommendations for an action plan. You gave us an action plan on what to do. What about an action plan on how to get it implemented, how to get the President to make these proposals, how to get Congress to go forward? Or do you feel like your job is over? Have you given us the sheet and now you all are going home? Mr. Augustine, is there another step? Mr. AUGUSTINE. No, we believe that our job has just begun, and we do have a plan. I should say that we are in a difficult position, because the National Academies don't lobby, by policy. On the other hand, the National Academies do provide information, disseminate information, share views, and we intend to do a lot of that. And we would hope that we will have the opportunity to do that broadly with the Business Roundtable, with labor unions, with other organizations that are interested in this topic, with teachers. And indeed, we do plan to pursue this, and our members haveMr. GORDON. Good. Mr. AUGUSTINE.-in fact, been Mr. GORDON. Well, I would hope that you would put together, around my office, I, you know, sort of have a, I don't know whether it is a saying, but if it is not written down, it is not a plan. And we would hope that, not as extensively as this, but that you might put together an action plan for implementing, whether informally or formally, meet with us and tell us how we can help. And we would all like to work together on that. The second question that I have, back when the original President Bush was President, he and Congress got together and passed something called PAYGO. We had a big deficit, and we wanted to do something about it, and we all know that the first thing you do when you are in a hole, you stop digging. And that is what PAYGO tried to do. Every time there was legislation that came to the Floor, it had to have a fiscal note to say what it cost. And you had to have either additional revenue or you had to have offsets for that. That was passed two more times under, again, under two Presidents and several Congresses. Unfortunately, it expired in 2002, and we can't get the current Congress to renew that. But going back to that same type of idea, it is going to be hard to get additional funds. Nobody likes to talk about taxes, and maybe we will just say fee or something here. Do you have any suggestions as to a fee that might be appropriate on, maybe, the business sector somewhere that would be dedicated for this $10 billion? You know, and that it would be a, you know, somewhat of a tit for tat if we have, you know, one-eighth of a percent additional something here that would go to these various teaching programs? Do you have any recommendations on that? Mr. AUGUSTINE. I am afraid I will have to disappoint you here, because our committee's charter really didn't include looking for offsets of Mr. GORDON. Well, I am just asking you as informed individuals and Mr. AUGUSTINE. As an individual, and not speaking for the committee, you know, kind of the way I look at it is that we have gross domestic product of $12 trillion. The Federal Government spends, as you know, $2 trillion a year. Last year, I am told that our citizens lost $7 billion betting on the Super Bowl. The cost of litigation to corporations in America is about 10 to 20 times what we have asked for here. And so it is our belief that this kind of money can be found. Now I have my own personal list, as I am sure everybody else does, of, you know, where I would start looking for money, but it is not particularly relevant, because I have no expertise in the subject. Mr. GORDON. Well, we are not voting on a budget today, because there wasn't the ability, the will, or whatever to go from a $35 billion reduction to $50 billion. So that was $15 billion that apparently couldn't be found. And it was a pretty hard effort. Now maybe they will find it next week, I don't know. So yes, there is probably, you know, there is enough money sloshing around. But if that is the answer, then we are not going to get this done. Mr. AUGUSTINE. Well, you know, I, as an individual, feel, I can't speak for other CEOs. I feel so strongly that it is in the best interest of our companies that if it requires an additional tax of some kind to fix some of these problems, and it is not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things, I personally would support that kind of thing. But again, I can't speak for the Mr. GORDON. Well, I think that would be another, again, the follow-up, both in the action plan and implementing this, and if the business community thinks it is important, it would give a lot of credibility and a lot of cover for folks. And I think that we want it as small as possible. It needs to be dedicated so that you know |