the gentleman from texas, mr. weber, is recognized. mr. weber: thank you, mr. speaker. at this time i'd like to give to the chairman lamar smith from texas four minutes, yield him four minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas, mr. smith, is recognized for four minutes. mr. smith: mr. speaker, first of all, let me thank the chairman of the energy subcommittee, mr. weber, the gentleman from texas, for yielding me time. i strongly support this bill, h.r. 5905, the department of energy science and innovation act of 2018. this bipartisan legislation, sponsored by 12 members of the house science committee, authorizes the basic research programs within the d.o.e. office of science for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. the programs include research in basic energy sciences, advanced scientific computing, high energy physics, biological and environmental research, fusion energy science, and nuclear physics. these basic research programs are the core mission of the department of energy and will produce the scientific discoveries that will

mr. weber: i have an amendment at the desk. the clerk: amendment number 45 offered by mr. weber of texas. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 918, the gentleman from texas, mr. weber and a member opposed, each will have 10 minutes. mr. weber: the corps has been developing levee risk without the close involvement without sponsors and this is unacceptable. the agency is trying to characterize flood risk to our communities without routinely offering alternatives or cost estimates. according to the u.s. army corps of engineers the report from march of this year, the agency indicates the following on page 28, there may be reluctance to hare it with the public. reluctance, reluctance indeed. the corps has been has had a classification. local levee systems in affected communities are labeled high risk, moderate risk, low risk or very low risk. 13% of the corps program levees are in the high or moderate risk categories. they are estimated to have eight million people that live behind them. national

i now recognize the chairman of the sub committee, the gentleman from texas, mr. weber, for his opening statement. >> madam chair, can i defer to hairman of the full committee for his statement? >> yes, you may. >> thank you. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you, mr. chairman. didn't know you were going to do that. often unknown to us, advances in artificial intelligence or ai touch many aspects of our lives. in the area of cyber security, ai reduces our reaction times to security threats. in the field of agriculture, soil moisture and targets crop watering. self driving cars and manages intelligent traffic systems. multiple technical disciplines, including quantityum computing science converge to form ai. tomorrow the science committee will mark up the national quantityum initiative act, to accelerate development. ranking member and i and others will introduce that today. my hope is that every member of the committee will sponsor it, or at least a majority. transforming our research will create scientific, technological studies, especially in the field of artificial in

i now recognize mr. weber for his opening statement. >> thank you, madam chair. today, we will hear from a panel of experts on next generation artificial intelligence, ai as we've all heard it describes. >>> it's likely everyone in this room benefits from artificial intelligence. for example, users of voice and music recommendation services are already utilizing aspects of this technology in their day-to-day life. and computer xoouting hardware that allows for the powerful parallel processing of this data. the field of ai has broadened to include other advance neural networks, deep learning and natural language processing to name a few. these learning techniques are key to the development of ai technologies and can be used to explore complex relationships and produce previously unseen results on unprecedented time scales. department of energy is the nation's largest federal supporter of basic research in the physical sciences with expertise in big data science, high performance computing, advanced algorithms and is uniquely positioned to enable fundamental resear

with friends like that, mr. weber, how are you going to devise a policy? >> well, it's an intensive discussion, absolutely, all over the world. globalization has migration challenges ahead of us. one thing i want to clarify, there is no increase of any kind of crime in germany. at this point trump is wrong tweeting this. generally speaking again, what we tried to do in europe and what angela merkel is standing for is to combine two points, strict border control, ambitious approach and to be still ready to respect the humanitarian faith of this continent. we want to be ready as europeans, as an economically strong christian-based continent and migrants looking for a better life. i respect that. that is not refugee, not somebody fleeing from the civil war. that separation is needed. asylum seekers, refugees from civil war and illegal migrants. for illegal migrants, there is only one way possible, to go back home to your people of origin. >> for people like yourself and for jeffrey of the united states, we can see that the polls show that president trump's po

the chair: the gentleman from texas, mr. weber, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. i want to thank the gentleman from idaho representative mike simpson, chairman of the house energy and water development appropriations subcommittee, for bringing a proscience bill to the floor that supports nuclear energy innovation. i strongly support division a of this legislation and appreciate the chairman's work on this bill. over the past four year the science committee championed legislation to provide the tools needed to develop advanced nuclear reactor technology in these united states. my bill, nuclear energy innovation capabilities act, passed the house three times last congress an most relently -- recently was included in the department of energy resources legislation act that passed the house in january of last year. a key part of this legislation authorizes d.o.e. to construct a research reactor. this reactor or versatile neutron source is critical for the design of materials an nuclear fuels. access to fast neutrons

mr. weber: mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. does the gentleman rise as the designee? mr. weber: yes, i do. the chair: the clerk will report the -- the clerk -- excuse me -- the clerk will designate the amendment. the chair: amendment number 44 printed in part a of house report 115-711 offered by mr. culberson of texas. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 918, the gentleman -- texas, mr. culberson, mr. mccaul -- a member opposed, will each control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. culberson. mr. culberson: thank you, mr. chairman. when hurricane harvey hit texas last year, it put over 50 inches of rain into an area the size of new jersey. it was the first category four hurricane to make lawful in the continental united states since -- landfall in the continental united states since 2004. it led to the largest housing disaster in the history of the united states. 1.4 million texans had to evacuate their homes and 300 house -- 300,000 households

mr. gramlich, you're represented for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman weber, ranking member and members of the subcommittee for inviting me to testify on the electric grid of the future. since modern society requires a affordable, clean, and reliable electricity for most commercial and personal pursuits, there is no infrastructure more important than the interstate electric network. while reliability is very high and growing, as reported just today over at ferc across town, the grid is evolving rapidly and threats are changing. we need to expand grid capacity, implement protections against severe weather and cyber and physical attack, and make more efficient use of the existing grid. d.o.e.'s office of electricity can play a key role in each of these areas. oe can contribute by continuing research and development and demonstration for new technologies for the grid, promoting grid expansion through permitting and studies, developing and bringing grid operations technologies to market, developing customer-end reliability and resilience options for critical uses, such as military facilitie

mr. chairman. >> thank you and thank you for all the witnesses being here today. i now recognize assistant secretary walker to present his testimony. >> thank you, chairman. >>> chairman weber, chairman smith, ranging member vc and johnson and distinguished members of the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity today to discuss the priority of research programs within the department of energies offices of electricity and energy security and emergency restoration. the department of energy is focused on ensuring that the energy infrastructure is capable of securing our national security. therefore, the resilience and reliability of the nation's electric grid is of the up most appearance. we collaborate with industry, academia, state and local governments and other stakeholders on numerous research and development programs to achieve these objectives. using the definitions set forth in the presentation policy, resiliency is defined as the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and can stand and recover rapidly from discussion. resilience includes the ability to stand and recover from deliberate attacks, incidents or naturally occurring threats or incidents.