Senate Commerce Committee Staff (05/10/91)
Legislation to authorize the High-Performance Computing Program and establish the National Research and Education Network (NREN) is moving ahead quickly in Congress. Two major steps forward this week: Step 1: On Tuesday, May 7, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee approved by voice vote a revised version of H.R. 656, the House companion to Senator Gore's High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 (S. 272). The Science Committee streamlined the bill, but the meat is still there (5 years' of funding, establishment of the NREN with NSF a lead agency, OSTP coordinating the HPC Program). Some verbiage was deleted in response to Administration cries of "micromanagement." In the House, the next step will be consideration of the bill by the Education and Labor Committee which has claimed jurisdiction over the bill. (The Ed. Committee has promised to move the bill through committee and onto the floor ASAP.) Step 2: Meanwhile, in the Senate, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources took time away from considering their legislation on the National Energy Strategy to unanimously approve S. 343, the DOE High-Performance Computing Act, which is to complement S. 272. Now that both S. 272 and S. 343 are out of committee, negotiations to merge the bills into one package can begin. The Energy Committee made some important revisions to S. 343 which will make it much easier to reconcile the two bills. (For instance, DOE is no longer in charge of running an "HPC Network" for the Federal government.) Some discrepancies remain, but everyone's talking (including the Administration and we all have the same end goals (faster, more powerful supercomputers, better software, the NREN, etc.) so hopes are high for quick action. In other news: The Senate Science, Technology, and Space Subcommittee held a very interesting, informative hearing on virtual reality Wednesday morning. Senator Gore chaired the hearing and Senators Pressler and Gorton attended. The hearing and especially the demonstration that VPL Research ran on Wednesday and Thursday did a great deal to educate staff and members on the potential of virtual reality (and advanced computing in general). Also, the Appropriations Committee is preparing to take its first cut at the appropriations pie next week. They will deciding how much money each of the 13 Appropriations Subcommittees will have to play with. In many ways this decision will determine whether a given subcommittee has any money for new programs this years. Whether the NREN and the HPC Program get off to a good start will depend a lot upon whether the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Subcommittee (which funds NSF and NASA) gets enough new money to provide large increase for NSF, the Space Station, NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, increased veteran's benefits (post-Desert Storm), etc. These so-called "602b allocations" are made by a handful of Senators on the Appropriations Committee and are about as public as the election of a Pope. We should know something by the end of next week. Professional Staff U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Washington, DC 20510