THE ROLE OF TECHNICAL INFORMATION IN COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DON FUQUA, Florida, Chairman ROBERT A. ROE, New Jersey TIM VALENTINE, North Carolina ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey RICHARD H. STALLINGS, Idaho JAMES A. TRAFICANT, JR., Ohio MANUEL LUJAN, JR., New Mexico * CLAUDINE SCHNEIDER, Rhode Island DON RITTER, Pennsylvania SID W. MORRISON, Washington JAN MEYERS, Kansas ROBERT C. SMITH, New Hampshire PAUL B. HENRY, Michigan HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois WILLIAM W. COBEY, JR., North Carolina JOE BARTON, Texas D. FRENCH SLAUGHTER, JR., Virginia DAVID S. MONSON, Utah CONTENTS Hon. John D. Rockefeller IV, a U.S. Senator from the State of West Pat Hill Hubbard, vice president, engineering and technical education, American Electronics Association; Dr. Gene Strull, general manager, advanced technology division of Westinghouse Defense and Electronic Systems Center; Dr. Edward E. Daub, general engineering department, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and George W. Rogers, Jr., vice chair- man, Information Handling Committee, Intelligence Community Staff... John D. Caplan, executive director, General Motors Research Laborato- Dr. Joseph F. Caponio, director, National Technical Information Service; Charles Horner, deputy assistant secretary for science and technology; George Mu, Office of Japan, International Trade Administration; and Dr. Ernest Ambler, director, National Bureau of Standards, Depart- ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD Statement of J. Coyne, manager, Office of Science and Technology, Depart- ment of Energy, Oak Ridge, TN. Letter from Erich Bloch, director of the National Science Foundation attach- ing list of NSF/Tokyo Report Memoranda and copy of NSF Report on U.S. Access to Japanese Scientific and Technical Literature, dated April 19, 1985 Letter from Gerald Hane, Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Richland, WA, enclosing copy of report, "Assessment of Technical Strengths and Information Flow of Energy Conservation Research in Japan," prepared for Letter from Patsy Vyner Hawks, Technology Analysis Group, Inc., Washing- Letter from Dawn Talbot, manager, Information Center, Center for Magnetic Recording Research, University of California, San Diego, CA..... (III) THE ROLE OF TECHNICAL INFORMATION IN U.S. COMPETITIVENESS WITH JAPAN WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1985 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:55 p.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Walgren (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. WALGREN. I apologize to you all for the interruptions and the delayed start because just as our hearing time came, they called for a vote on the floor and it was followed by another. This one will be followed somewhat directly also by another vote, but I thought we could start and at least provide an opportunity for Senator Rockefeller, who is the lead-off witness in this hearing, to play his part. Let me just, by way of introduction, say that this afternoon the Science, Research and Technology Subcommittee, begins 2 days of hearings on the "Role of Technical Information in United States Competitiveness with Japan." In the past 10 years, Japan has made substantial advances in science and technology, and particularly in the area of computers, semiconductors, fiberoptics, and robotics. This dramatic change in Japan's competitive position in high technology is indicated by the expanding bilateral balance in trade with the United States, with, I am afraid, Japan being on the winning side. The complexity of the Japanese language and difficulty in learning it is one reason that underlies a one-way information flow from the United States to Japan, with very little returning. There is an acute shortage of people who are literate, both in Japanese language and in scientific and technical fields in our society and we certainly need to be sensitive to ways to overcome this kind of cultural and language barrier. In the next 2 days, the subcommittee plans to investigate what progress has been made since last year's hearings on the availability of Japanese scientific information in the United States and also to look at the comparative strength of the United States and Japan in selected high-technology fields. This is an area of continual interest, I think, by and large, in various levels of the U.S. Government. There have been a number of symposiums held in this area: the MIT held a symposium in 1983; the subcommittee had hearings in 1984 on this subject; the Smithsonian Institute held a conference on technical translation in (1) |