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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1015-E1016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INTRODUCTION OF THE ARPA-E REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2019
______
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON
of texas
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, today I am very pleased to
introduce the ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 with my colleague, Mr.
Lamb, who is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy.
Even though the agency is still relatively young, ARPA-E has already
demonstrated incredible success in advancing high-risk, high-reward
energy technology solutions that neither the public nor the private
sector had been willing or able to support in the past. Industry
leaders like Bill Gates and Norm Augustine have repeatedly called for
tripling this agency's budget given the unique role that it is now
playing in our energy innovation pipeline.
ARPA-E's impressive track record now includes over $2.9 billion in
private sector follow-on funding for a group of 145 ARPA-E projects
since the agency's founding in 2009. Equally notable, 76 projects have
formed new companies and 131 projects have shown enough promise to
result in partnerships with other government agencies for further
development. Moreover, as of March 2019, ARPA-E projects have helped
advance scientific understanding and technological innovation through
2,489 peer-reviewed journal articles and 346 patents issued by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
Yet to date, ARPA-E has only been able to support about 1 percent of
the proposals submitted for its open funding opportunities, and 12
percent of the proposals submitted for its focused programs, even
though the number of promising, high quality proposals that the agency
has received is many times higher.
This is why the ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 authorizes
substantial growth in funding for the agency over the next five years.
This growth is consistent with the original recommendations of the
National Academies for establishing and supporting ARPA-E in its
seminal Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, as well as more recent
strong recommendations from well-respected bipartisan
[[Page E1016]]
and nonpartisan institutions such as the Bipartisan Policy Center's
American Energy Innovation Council, the Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation, and the Energy Futures Initiative.
I'd also note that in its review of the program released in June
2017, the National Academies found that a substantial increase in
funding would be necessary for ARPA-E to be able to sufficiently
support the scale-up of particularly promising technologies, such as
advanced technologies for energy storage and power electronics, that
were previously supported by the agency. But many of these new
approaches are still too risky to be supported by the private sector
alone, and too often, other DOE programs remain ill-suited to steward
them.
So by authorizing these resources, this bill ensures that ARPA-Eis
able to fully pursue the development and eventual commercialization of
truly transformational clean energy technologies, just as DARPA, the
agency that ARPA-E is modeled, has been able to demonstrate time and
again for defense applications.
Other improvements in this bill include explicit authorization for
ARPA-E to better address DOE's significant nuclear waste clean-up and
management issues, for which the Department currently spends several
billion dollars every year attempting to manage with current
technologies. And it includes authorization for ARPA-E to support
projects to improve the resilience, reliability, and security of our
energy infrastructure.
The ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 incorporates extensive
feedback from stakeholders, as well as input we received during a
hearing the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held on
February 26th entitled The Future of ARPA-E. It also incorporates
constructive language from a bill that I cosponsored with my friend,
Mr. Lucas, who is now Ranking Member of the Committee, last year.
This bill is endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National
Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Council on Competitiveness, the
Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), the Association of American
Universities (AAU), the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities
(APLU), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the American Gas
Association (AGA), the Energy Storage Association (ESA), the Carbon
Utilization Research Council (CURC), the American Council on Renewable
Energy (ACORE), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the American Council for Capital
Formation (ACCF), Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES),
ConservAmerica, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
(ITIF), the Task Force on American Innovation (TFAI), Environmental
Entrepreneurs (E2), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Optical
Society of America (OSA), IEEE-USA, the Task Force on American
Innovation (TFAI), the Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC), and the Gas
Technology Institute (GTI).
Given this broad and deep support from the leading industrial,
academic, scientific, and environmental organizations of our nation, I
look forward to advancing this bill through the Committee in the coming
months. And I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle to build support for this critical investment in our nation's
clean energy future.
____________________
