On the same day the president was giving his speech, the Department of Defense was presenting its report to the Senate on the progress of DARPA's ongoing beam weapon research. The director of the Directed Energy Program said that while they offered promise, their "relative immaturity" made it difficult to know if they would ever be used, and in any event would be unlikely to have any effect until the "1990s or beyond". The Undersecretary of Defense, Richard DeLauer, later said these weapons were at least two decades away and development would have "staggering" costs.