MACOMB — U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, spoke with Voice staff Friday of his recent attempt to streamline and modernize the federal government’s investment in high-end computing and information technology, among other topics.
HR 5312 is a piece of legislation that passed the Science, Space and Technology Committee on Wednesday. It updates the original High Performance Computing Act of 1991 that led to the forming of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program. It also is meant to benefit entities such as Western Illinois University, Caterpillar and University of Illinois.
LaHood said the modernization of the NITRD program will allow for collaboration between federal agencies, national laboratories, private industry and schools like WIU.
More specifically, some of the streamlining includes access to the Blue Waters Supercomputer held by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the U of I in Champaign-Urbana. Organizations like Caterpillar have been able to advance in product development since the 1990s due in great part to the Blue Waters Supercomputer.
LaHood told the Voice that in the nine months he’s been assigned to the Science, Space and Technology Committee, he has learned a lot about that field.
“It has a lot of applications in technology. It relates to research grants in our universities and colleges,” LaHood said of the committee.
Whether it’s cybersecurity attacks likes those recently at the FDIC, Department of Defense or security agencies — even those in the private sector such as power plants and power grids — there continues to be emphasis on maintaining security.
“It’s going to be one of the number one issues we face going into the future,” he said.
“The bill I passed in committee this week has broad application for a lot of things. What it looks at is research and development being done in private sector and government. It looks at NSA and other places, application to private sector; it looks at duplication in research and duplicative mechanisms already in place. From the broad perspective it looks at how we make networking technology more efficient. Also, it looks at how we work on cybersecurity to raise the ability to deter and prevent attacks, as well as enforce the laws we have on the books when it comes to compromising our computer systems.”
The Record So Far
While in the area on Friday, LaHood also toured the Pella Corp., Vaughan-Bushnell Manufacturing and met with local agriculture representatives. What’s more, he said he has yet to miss a vote and is back every weekend.
Govtrack.us verifies his claim that he has missed no roll calls out of the 475 that have taken placed between September 2015 and May of this year.
