Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Ted Budd (R-N.C.) chaired a hearing in the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness yesterday entitled Measuring What Matters: Science, Standards, and Strategic Competition to discuss how the U.S. can more strategically align our scientific research, federal science agencies and assets, and the private sector to compete with China. In his opening statement, Senator Budd emphasized three priorities to pave the way for stronger American competition: prioritizing outcome-based metrics, streamlining our world-class science agencies, and identifying Chinese intellectual property theft undermining our national security.
Watch the full hearing HERE.
Below are Senator Budd’s opening remarks:
“I want to thank Ranking Member Baldwin, Chairman Cruz, and Ranking Member Cantwell for helping to convene this important hearing.
“For 250 years, the American economy has told a single, consistent story: one of relentless innovation and bold risk-taking, and an unmatched ability to turn ideas into industries. The secret sauce in that formula for continued growth and expanded American prosperity is innovation.
“Throughout our history, and particularly since the end of World War II, the U.S has been the world’s foremost laboratory for fundamental science, and we lead the world in turning that research into revolutionary inventions and commercial products.
“As our expert witnesses will discuss, the Vannevar Bush model of the federal government funding basic research through universities and research institutions has served our nation incredibly well.
“However, we have never faced as fierce a competition as we do today.
“Earlier this year, China approved its 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, the PRC’s goal is to build self-reliance in areas it currently relies on the United States and Europe for, by boosting advanced manufacturing with decisive breakthroughs in advanced materials, equipment, machine tools, and high-end instruments, and industrial applications of artificial intelligence and robotics. It also calls for building PRC leadership in strategic and emerging sectors and 2 making other decisive breakthroughs in core areas such as biotechnology, semiconductors, and software.
“But don’t be confused—the PRC’s plan is not just about self-reliance. It is an economic and strategic framework for identifying critical supply chains and industries, then systematically stealing intellectual property, heavily subsidizing manufacturing, and, eventually, dumping products designed to ensure that other countries cannot compete at scale. We have seen this across multiple strategic industries, and the breadth and pace is only increasing.
“The PRC has joined the U.S. as the only other country to spend more than $1 trillion annually on research and development (R&D). By 2024, the PRC accounted for 30% of global research and development flows, while the U.S share had declined from 39% at the start of the 21st century to 29%.
“We must be clear-eyed about the competition that we face, and this committee can play a significant role by setting the metrics by which we define scientific success and place the federal research enterprise on stronger footing.
“First, we need to better prioritize outcome-based metrics as a gauge of impact and competitiveness. Influencing international standards, leading in high-impact research, and measuring technology adoption and diffusion are paramount. Additionally, evaluating the strength of public-private partnerships and instances of industry funding university research could signal which lines of applied research are most valuable and making the greatest impact.
“Second, this committee should look at ways to streamline, focus, and improve agencies under its jurisdiction, like the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Copan, during your time as NIST Director, you authored an important 3 white paper titled, ‘Return on Investment Initiative for Unleashing American Innovation,’ which recommended improving tech transfer, strengthening R&D partnerships with the private sector, and improving access to federal R&D assets for businesses.
“Given the PRC’s significant focus on standards development, I look forward to discussing ways in which NIST’s world-class talent in metrology can be better targeted to enhance U.S. competitiveness in emerging technologies.
“Finally, this committee should look carefully at Chinese scientific and intellectual property theft, which significantly undermines American economic dominance and national security. I firmly believe that the U.S. is well positioned to continue to lead the world in the amazing discoveries and breakthroughs that inspire countless young men and women to engage in science and build the technologies and companies that shape the future.
“However, we are at a critical inflection point if we want to maintain and improve that lead.
“We can help secure that leadership by re-thinking the metrics by which we determine success, streamlining our world-class science agencies, and looking for ways to further partner with the private sector on shared applied research priorities.”
Below are Senator Budd’s questions for the witnesses:
Sen. Budd: “…You mentioned the 5,000-person team in Shenzhen ready to move on an American research accomplishment in biological engineering. It seemed like that was at speed and scale. You also mentioned your support for the creation of a biological measurement laboratory at NIST. So, is China applying that scale, speed, and resourcing to metrology work and standard setting?”
Dr. Endy: “What I observe is China appears to be building national laboratory-scale facilities for the 21st century across all sciences, and, in particular, in biology and biotechnology. They’re advantaged in that, in starting such an effort, they’re not burdened by a legacy portfolio. It’s easier to build a new house sometimes than renovate an old house. The work that they’re capable of doing, because of the capacity they have.
“When I have an idea in biology, I won’t know if it works or not until I build it and test it. Let’s say I’m interested in an AI tool. If I have an AI tool that generates a string of English, I can quickly judge if that text is good or bad. But if I have an AI tool trained on DNA sequences, and it emits [or] generates novel DNA sequences, what do they do… The only way to really know is to build that DNA and test it, and then see what it does, and feed that measurement back into the modeling platform to get a better model. So, if you want to have world-leading large language foundation models, for biology, we have to have the large language laboratories to go along with it.
“And so, that’s the capacity I see being developed in Shenzhen, and throughout China, to scale measurement, experimentation, prototyping, tinkering, and translation of biotechnology solutions. And we just don’t have anything like it, not in the United States, not in Europe.”
Sen. Budd: “You mentioned it might be easier to build a new house than to renovate an old house. … What are parts of the old house? If we have some of the old house that may need renovating, what are those parts that are difficult to renovate?”
Dr. Endy: “ …The amazing thing about biology is operating at the intersection of physics, chemistry, information science, and energy science. … I would say, strengthen the expertise in physical science and metrology, chemical science and metrology at NIST.
“The ability of NIST to do an amazing job coordinating industry coalitions and translating innovations into the economy, but at the same time use that and recognize there needs to be something for biology itself. Biology is a big space. It’s 5% of our domestic economy, and it’s poised to grow by a significant amount. Shame on us if we don’t figure out how to get a good investment in place for advancing the bioeconomy and a bigger return.”
Sen. Budd: “What would be some of the consequences if the Chinese biology standards were the globally adopted standards?”
Dr. Endy: “… Biotechnology is a bottom-up manufacturing platform that will reshape how we build the majority of inputs to our economy. So, think of a future in which people can partner with biology to solve problems where they are locally. That content for programming biology is going to have to come from somewhere. It’s going to have to be accessible through a bio net, a resilient distributed network for manufacturing on demand. … The platforms for doing this, the soft power, the hard power, [and] the economic power-all of that is at stake right now. One of the reasons Beijing has bet big on bio is not just that they need it, because they need food and everything else. But they also see that the bio race is not yet won.”
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