WASHINGTON, D.C., April 28, 2004 – A panel of industry witnesses today urged Congress to fully fund the President’s Fiscal Year 2005 (FY05) budget request for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Testifying before the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards, witnesses representing the semiconductor, nanotechnology, and biometrics industries, and firefighters extolled the many vital roles NIST’s laboratories play in supporting the U.S. economy and security.

NIST is the oldest federal laboratory and it plays a critical role in fulfilling industry’s needs for measurement methods, and technology. NIST also has an important homeland security function in conducting research in cybersecurity and setting standards for biometrics, first responder equipment, and building and fire codes.

The FY04 appropriation for NIST’s lab account was $338.6 million, a cut of 5.2 percent ($20 million) from the FY 03 appropriation. This appropriation was also $49 million below the President’s request. As a result, NIST has been forced to curtail planned research and standards development projects across the entire breadth of its activities, and lay off as many as 100 scientists.

However, the Administration’s FY05 request will increase NIST’s budget by $84 million, or 25 percent, and includes funding for a number of initiatives critical to the success of high-tech industry. “This request, if funded, will go a long way toward restoring the cuts of Fiscal Year 2004, and I support this effort 100 percent,” said Subcommittee Chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI).

Ehlers continued, “NIST is becoming even more important to the future of our industries, their competitiveness, and our national security. NIST scientists are on the forefront of nanotechnology and cybersecurity research, standards and measurements for homeland security devices and equipment for first responders, and developing voluntary standards for new electronic voting machines – just to name a few.”

Subcommittee Ranking Minority Member Mark Udall (D-CO) said, “It was important for us to hear from our industry panelists today about the high value they place on NIST. I know they share my concerns about NIST's underfunding. I believe the Science Committee can do more to ensure that NIST has the funds to meet the obligations that this Committee has set for it. We need to take our responsibility as an authorizing committee seriously and move authorization legislation that sets out spending limits and priorities for NIST. I look forward to working with the Committee toward this goal.”

“NIST is the only U.S. government agency chartered to help U.S. business,” said Ms. Deborah Grubbe, Corporate Director of Safety and Health at DuPont. “It is essential that we, as leaders in the U.S. scientific and technical community, recognize NIST as a key to our nation’s innovation engine.”

Mr. Daryl Hatano, Vice President of Public Policy at the Semiconductor Industry Association, told the Subcommittee that NIST’s budget has prevented it from adequately meeting the challenges resulting from significant advances in the semiconductor industry. “NIST’s level of effort has not kept pace with needs brought on by technology advances,” he said. Mr. Hatano testified that since 1995 NIST’s investment in semiconductor research has increased only 15 percent, while industry spending has increased by 145 percent over the same time period. Explaining the significance of this lack of investment he said, “NIST’s lithography equipment can etch patterns with a feature size of 1 micron, while the current industry standard is approaching 0.13 microns (or 130 nanometers), and sub-100-nanometers devices are coming soon.”

Dr. Thomas Cellucci, President and Chief Operating Officer at the Zyvex Corporation, a nanotechnology company located in Richardson, Texas, testified on the role of NIST in the emergence of nanotechnology as a major sector of the economy. “Right now, one of the key issues facing the nanotechnology arena is the need for standards for nanoscale materials and tools. The NIST labs provide the accuracy, reliability and international recognition for the measurements and measurement-related operations that make up approximately 3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product…. They are helping the private sector create more high-quality, high-paying jobs.”

Witnesses also testified on the role of NIST in homeland security. Mr. James Jasinski, Vice President of Federal and State Systems for Cogent Systems, a biometrics company headquartered in Pasadena, California, described the ways in which NIST has worked with his company on the development of biometrics for the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program.

Mr. John Biechman, Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) traced his organizations ties to NIST (then known as the Bureau of Standards) back to the great Baltimore fire of 1904, where a lack of equipment standards prohibited responding fire departments from neighboring jurisdictions to connect their fire hoses to Baltimore’s hydrant system, greatly exacerbating the fire’s devastation. He compared that situation with the lack of an interoperable communication system that plagued first responders to the World Trade Center on September 11th and he described specific ways in which NIST has addressed such problems and instituted standards for building codes and emergency equipment.

“NIST’s role in firefighter personal protective equipment, flammability testing, fire modeling and seismic investigation are just a few examples of NIST’s previous work,” Mr. Biechman said. “Over the past century, NIST and [its] Building and Fire Research Laboratory have successfully aided the knowledge and advancement of numerous fire and building safety measures that include improvements at many levels of government and facets of safety.” He continued, “[T]here is no other laboratory in the United States as capable as the NIST Building and Fire Research Laboratory; conducting research for the public good.”

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