House Passes Davis Supercomputing Legislation
'Strengthens Tennessee's role in protecting our national interests' July 07, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis (TN-4) today hailed the passage of H.R. 4218, the High Performance Computing Revitalization Act of 2004 and H.R. 4516, the Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004. Davis was the chief co-sponsor of both bills. The House passed them by unanimous consent.

"While it may appear technical and narrowed in nature this legislation is actually far more reaching," Davis said. "Our national supercomputing efforts will not only be a vehicle for advancing progress in the sciences, but in strengthening our national security and protecting our environment. Both pieces of legislation provide guidance and authorize appropriations with Oak Ridge National Laboratory receiving a large portion of the funding."

H.R. 4516 instructs the Secretary of Energy to implement a research and development program to advance high-end computing systems and to develop and deploy them for advanced scientific and engineering applications. It also seeks to develop potential advancements in high-end computing system hardware and software. It also authorizes appropriations of $165 million over three years, with Oak Ridge National Laboratory getting roughly half.

H.R. 4218 amends the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 by refocusing federal computing efforts to reverse the trend of the diminishing dominance of the U.S. in high-end computing. This will be done by ensuring we have a comprehensive, adequately funded supercomputing effort among the participating federal agencies. It would further require the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy to assure the U.S. research community sustained access to world-class high-performance computing systems for solving scientific and engineering problems.