Senate Subcommittee Sees Results of Federal Computing Program
Come fiscal year 1997, the Administration’s High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) program will need reauthorizing. On May 4, Conrad Burns (R-MT), chairman of the Senate Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee, held a hearing to “evaluate the program,...and to revisit the question of the appropriate role for the government in this kind of project.”
The witnesses experienced some heart-stopping moments as the hardware on which they planned to demonstrate the program’s utility refused to cooperate. Burns commented, “Son-of-a-gun! There’s your billion dollars!” But eventually the glitches were worked out, and the witnesses were able to provide compelling examples of various information technologies, and their relevance to the rural-state subcommittee members in attendance [Burns, Larry Pressler (R-SD), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Ted Stevens (R-AK)].
John Toole, head of the HPCC’s National Coordination Office, called the 12-agency program a “model `virtual’ agency.” Toole quoted a recent National Research Council study which concluded that “the government’s investments in information technology have made a significant impact over the long term.” He added that while “enormous progress was visible” for the $4 billion spent over the first four years of the program, “much remains to be done.... The real information revolution is still in the future.”
Toole reported that the FY 1996 request of $1.143 billion would be used to fund competitively selected projects. (In a recent round of awards, about 55 percent went to academia, 20 percent to industry, and 25 percent to government labs.) For the future, Toole cited an NSTC strategic implementation plan, which highlights the following focus areas: global-scale information infrastructure technologies; high performance scalable systems; high confidence systems; virtual environments; user-centered interfaces; and human resources and education.
Bill Burrall, a junior high school teacher from West Virginia, described how the Internet “allows students and teachers to overcome the boundaries of time and distance.” There are “unlimited, untapped resources out there available to us,” he said; “It’s critical that we receive continued funding.” Steven Running, of the University of Montana School of Forestry, demonstrated uses of remote sensing to monitor land management issues such as droughts, fire danger, snow cover, and water quality. “The single biggest factor in making [remote sensing] truly useful,” he stated, is networks to get timely information to land owners and managers at a low cost, so they can use it for planning purposes.
Sen. Stevens questioned how small businesses with little time or staff could utilize the vast resources of the Internet. Richard Gowan, president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, explained a networking service his school is developing to help small companies find information on suppliers, services, and federal assistance. Gowan testified that “the federal services available are truly impressive,” but small companies needed assistance “to know which one to go to.” Stevens repeated concerns about not leaving behind “people who can’t afford computers,” but acknowledged the potential importance of information technologies to small states and rural regions. “I think [HPCC] should have a very high level of priority,” he concluded.
