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Witness urges Congress to shore up decaying national lab infrastructure, warns of authorization-appropriation gap
Summary
Dr. Foster told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee that U.S. national laboratories need sustained infrastructure investment to avoid "boom-and-bust" cycles that harm scientific productivity and workforce stability, and urged action to align authorizations with appropriations.
Dr. Foster, the sole witness at the House Science, Space and Technology Committee Member Day hearing, told lawmakers the nation’s Department of Energy national laboratories face aging infrastructure and uneven funding that undercuts long-term scientific work.
“Without the critical infrastructure that’s frankly decaying in many areas, the national labs cannot keep up their incredible work,” Foster said, describing legislative plans to “firm up the infrastructure investments” labs need.
Foster framed the problem as a mismatch between authorization committees, which set long-term goals, and appropriations committees, which allocate annual funding. He said the Chips and Science Act included authorizations that were not matched by appropriations and called that an “unfunded mandate.” “One of the most destructive things you can do to any organization is to give them a goal that they really want to accomplish and then not give them the resources to do it,” he said.
The witness recommended giving national lab directors greater autonomy to manage long-term research and infrastructure rather than holding labs to short-term bureaucratic metrics. He described a strategy of using infrastructure investments to smooth the “boom-and-bust” funding cycle, allowing labs to retain skilled staff and maintain facilities between major projects.
Committee members pressed Foster on how proposed steps would align with existing Department of Energy programs. Chair Babin asked how Foster’s legislative effort would align with DOE’s Science Laboratory Infrastructure (SLI) program; Foster replied he did not have the program specifics in front of him and described the idea at a conceptual level as a method to maintain workforce and facilities between projects.
Several members also discussed the role of other agencies and programs — including the National Science Foundation and NASA — and the need to coordinate authorization work with appropriations to deliver sustained investment. Foster said the committee should consider ways to “reclaim the authority from the appropriations committees” and warned that short-term political incentives make long-term scientific planning difficult.
The hearing record remains open for written questions for 10 days, and Foster offered to answer follow-up questions on his infrastructure proposals.
