Sherry Boehlert

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart) who is a valued member of the committee and a leader in enhancing the domestic manufacturing sector's ability to compete in a global marketplace.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Research and the Committee on Science.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), a valued member of the committee.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and before I actually close, let me thank all of the staff who worked so hard on this over the past year: Olwen Huzley, Eric Webster, Amy Carroll, David Goldston on the committee staff; and Cameron Wilson on the staff of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), who, happily, could not be with us today because of the birth of Nolan Eric Wilson. We wish Nolan, Cameron and Laura Wilson our very best. Our staff finds many ways to contribute to the Nation's future. And, Mr. Chairman, let me thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We have worked in a bipartisan fashion to create a good bill. There are some differences over the level of funding, but I will say that we are on the same wavelength with respect to our admiration and affection for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and we can proudly go forward with the committee's bill. That is what this bill is all about. It is about jobs, it is about helping the manufacturing sector. And to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) I would point out, if manufacturing in America was subsidized to the extent that government subsidized professional sports is, they would be in heaven. H.R. 3598 will help ensure that our Nation has good, high-paying, productive manufacturing jobs for years to come, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment was defeated in committee because, quite frankly, it is not a particularly good idea. This amendment sounds great on the surface. It says let us not let the administration have a competition in which all of the MEP centers compete against each other to see who stays in business. Such a general competition sounds like a hostile act which should be prevented. If there is enough money to fund all of the centers, as we hope there will be, then a recompetition would be a hostile act. But what if Congress fails to appropriate sufficient funding for all of the centers. How is any administration supposed to decide which centers should continue? It makes no sense at all to prevent a recompetition if there is not enough money for all of the centers to function effectively. If the gentlewoman's amendment passed and funding became low, the administration would simply have to reduce funding to any center which would prevent all of them from doing their jobs well. That simply makes no sense. In committee, we thought what the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) might be trying to do was to prevent successful centers from being closed even when funding was adequate, so we added language to the bill that says the administration cannot recompete the centers if funding is at or above $106 million, what everyone considers the minimum necessary to keep all of the existing centers operating well, and the level that the House approved in the Commerce appropriation bill within the past 24 hours. So they have the message. We sent it, they received it. They acted favorably on it. So this bill already protects the centers from any hostile recompetition if funding is sufficient to fund all of them. The bill will prevent any spurious efforts to close centers, so I am truly baffled about what the gentlewoman is trying to accomplish here. The way to avoid a recompetition is to provide full funding which this bill authorizes. But if we fail to provide the promised funding, all this amendment would do is force all of the centers to function less efficiently because none would have enough money to do their job. This amendment creates problems without solving any. I urge its defeat. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) for working with us on this amendment. The amendment very sensibly codifies existing procedures to ensure just what the gentleman wants to do. Taxpayer money is not wasted. We accept the amendment.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), my good friend. I would say that, in an ideal world, this would be a good amendment. I would define an ideal world as one in which money was unlimited. In short, it is a world very different from the one in which we live. This amendment would add $88 million in additional spending to the bill. That is just not realistic in this budget environment. And quite rightly, the administration is not going to support a bill that adds that much more money. So what this amendment would do is kill the bill. If we truly want to help manufacturers, we need to defeat this amendment. And let me emphasize once again that this bill already contains a significant increase for the MEP program, an increase of more than 200 percent from current levels. So this is hardly a parsimonious bill. The additional money the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) is proposing would be nice, but it is not critical to the success of the MEP program. The money that is already in the bill is critical, a 200 percent increase; and we should be doing what we can to ensure that this bill becomes law. In addition to adding money, the gentleman from Tennessee's (Mr. Gordon) amendment would increase the Federal share of the MEP centers' budgets. I know that the MEP centers have not had the best year, but I do not think that increasing the share from the Federal Government is necessarily a good idea. Let me remind my colleagues that the original version of the MEP centers was that they would not receive any money after their 6th year. The current MEP formula involves a true partnership between the Federal Government, the States, and the MEP's clients. That is a good partnership that ensures that MEPs are truly providing valiant services. I do not think we should tinker with a successful formula. So I urge defeat of this amendment. The base bill already provides the money the MEP centers need most through a formula that ensures that the centers will continue to be responsive to their States and, most importantly, to the customers that they are trying to help. This amendment would sink the bill, a pretty high price to pay for an amendment that does not provide anything that is necessary and that tinkers with a recipe that has led to MEP's success, and I urge its defeat. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, in closing, just let me say that this bill will prevent centers from closing. This bill will prevent centers from closing, without any amendments. I urge defeat of the Gordon amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. THE CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion. This motion sounds good on the surface, but it is both misguided and unnecessary. I have to say I am a little bit surprised to see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle get so excited over a study. Outsourcing, they say correctly, is a major problem and their solution, a study. They are going to accuse us of foot dragging, not doing enough to keep and create jobs here at home, and as an alternative, they offer a study? We have a bill before us that takes real, proven, practical and immediate steps to help American manufacturers. Is the other side arguing that the one thing it lacks is a study? That is political nonsense. It is even worse, really, because if my colleagues across the aisle had done their homework, they would have discovered that the House has already approved a study on outsourcing and even has provided money for it and is part of a bill that will not get held up over other issues. We did not do this so long ago that they might have forgotten. The House approved the bill just yesterday. The Commerce appropriation bill includes $2 million for the National Academy of Public Administration, an independent, nongovernment body, to conduct a study. That is important. The entire House is already on record in not only supporting an independent study of offshoring but actually funding it. So we back up our words with deeds. Let us not encumber this bill with an unnecessary and duplicative study. Let us pass the bill and take real steps to help American manufacturers.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 3598, as amended.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule. It is a fair rule that will enable consideration of all of the amendments that are directly related to this bill. The stated goal of every Member of this body is to try to help smaller manufacturers compete, and H.R. 3598 is designed to do just that. But H.R. 3598 will only result in real assistance to manufacturers if it gets signed into law. We want something more than press releases. We want something more than the satisfaction derived from doing something worthy in the House only to have it die elsewhere. We want this signed into law. This is a good bill that can get signed into law. So what we asked the Committee on Rules to do was to craft a rule that would allow debate on all filed amendments directly related to the bill, and I emphasize that: filed amendments directly related to the bill; but only on those amendments, and that is what the Committee on Rules did. It rejected amendments from both Democrats and Republicans that were not directly related to authorizing manufacturing R&D programs run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Now, that seems like a reasonable approach. We can save for another day, and I am sure that day will come, general debates about outsourcing or specific debates about programs that do not focus exclusively on manufacturing, like the Advanced Technology Program. Indeed, any Member truly interested in funding ATP could have offered an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that we have been discussing on the floor this week. So this rule is not cutting off any House debate on broader issues that may impinge on manufacturing. There are other vehicles for that debate. The rule simply says that this important bill should not be encumbered by those debates. I should add that we had very extensive debate on H.R. 3598 in committee. We seriously considered numerous amendments from the other side of the aisle, and we accepted one amendment as offered and two others in modified form. This bill already reflects an animated, but open-minded discussion. This bill has the fingerprints of Republicans and Democrats alike all over it. Also, as my colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), graciously pointed out at the Committee on Rules yesterday, no one thinks that this is not a good bill. It is a good bill that is needed to ensure the continued health of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. We all ought to be doing everything we can to move it swiftly through this House in a form in which it can move through the other body and be signed by the President. This rule will ensure that nothing extraneous can hold up our aid to our manufacturers. That is our number one objective: aiding our manufacturers, while allowing full and open debate on matters within the borders of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the rule and of H.R. 3598.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time, and I want to rise in strong support of H.R. 4218. I want to particularly thank the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for the leadership she has provided and to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) in being her partner in this enterprise. This is an important measure, and I proudly rise to give my unqualified support for it. This measure flows from two simple, unarguable premises: The computing industry has become a fundamental building block of our entire economy, and computing has become an indispensable part of conducting research and development here at home. That means that it is incumbent on the Federal Government to ensure that it is doing everything possible to strengthen the long-term competitiveness of the computing industry and to ensure that our Nation's researchers have access to the best computers in the world. The bill is designed to accomplish those two goals by strengthening our existing interagency programs on high-performance computing. Frankly, in recent years, we have taken our eye off the ball a little bit; and as a result, the Japanese now have the fastest computer in the world. Not to worry, we are being challenged. They are breathing down our neck, but we are preparing to respond; and we have to reverse that trend. They have one machine; we have many machines. We are clearly number one in the world, and we are determined to maintain that position. The administration knows that, and led by Dr. Jack Marburger at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the administration is increasing its focus on this area and issued a new report laying out how it plans to do so. This legislation will give additional impetus to those efforts. The bill should ensure that Federal agencies coordinate their efforts both to fund R&D on computing hardware and software and to fund access to the best computers. I will never forget the testimony I heard some 20 years ago as a junior member of the Committee on Science, that is, before the government began its supercomputing initiative. That testimony came from Nobel Laureate Ken Wilson, who was then at Cornell. He said to us, and this was in the early 1980s, he said to us that he and his students had to go overseas to get the computing resources they needed. We were determined that that would never happen again, and therein was born the supercomputer initiative in America. In the 1990s, we all know this, in the 1990s we enjoyed unprecedented growth in our economy, for 10 years, quarter-after-quarter, year-after- year growth in the economy, and more jobs being created. The Information Age was upon us. And because of what the government was doing, what we were investing in in supercomputing technology, that was largely made possible. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this urgently needed, carefully targeted bill that will make sure that the U.S. builds and American scientists can use the best computers in the world. These days, that is a necessary condition for the long-term success of our economy, and we are determined to guarantee the long-term success of our economy. So to the chairwoman, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), I commend you both for the outstanding cooperation that was evidenced in developing this measure. I particularly want to thank the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for the leadership she has provided. Time after time she has proven that she is there with a solution to the problem. We do not have a problem that we cannot tackle and overcome, and she has proven it once again. So I urge my colleagues to register their strong support for H.R. 4218.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill, and I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) for bringing this bill forward. Bills in this area have been proposed for many years; but through the gentleman from Texas's (Mr. Neugebauer) efforts, we now have a bipartisan measure that the House can pass. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) is what I refer to as an impact player. Some people come to this House, the people's House, and take a few years, understandably, to get sort of settled in and to begin to have an impact. He just took a couple of months, and he has had an impact. And this bill is a direct tribute to his tenacity and determination to get something done, and I want to thank him for that on behalf of the entire committee on a bipartisan basis. Windstorms cause damage and deaths every year throughout the country. Far too much damage, far too many deaths. One is unacceptable. We may not be able to do anything about the weather, but we can do more than talk about it. We can build and retrofit structures so they are better able to survive windstorms. But we can do that successfully and affordably only if we conduct the research and development needed to learn more about storms and about structures. That is exactly what this bill will enable us to do. This is not a vain hope. Congress created the same kind of program for earthquakes in the late 1970s. And as a result, we are able to do much more today than we were 30 years ago to make structures earthquake resistant. We hope this similar program will yield a similar result for windstorms. So in this bill we are following a proven formula. So again let me congratulate once again the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) and the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore) for this bill. They worked together in a bipartisan basis to fashion something that earns our support. Let me thank also the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and I am privileged to serve on that committee also, for working with us on the FEMA portions of this bill. And let me thank the American Society of Civil Engineers and the other groups that have guided us in drafting the bill. We did not just get in some closet someplace and say this is a problem, how do we deal with it. We reached out under the gentleman from Texas's (Mr. Neugebauer) leadership and the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), and we invited opinion, we invited input; and as a result of all that, we were able to fashion something that is pretty darn good, and I am proud of it. And I want to commend it to the attention of my colleagues and urge its overwhelming adoption.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) that the report accompanying this bill calls for an external review of the NOAA laboratories and of the management of NOAA's research activities. As the gentleman knows, these issues have been of great interest to the Committee on Science, and indeed are addressed in an NOAA Organic Act that I recently introduced. Our committees have worked together on these issues of research management, and I would like some assurance from the chairman that our committees will continue to work together on this matter. I would not want to see any directive coming from the Committee on Appropriations in this or any other bill regarding the management and structuring of science at NOAA that did not reflect agreement between our respective committees.

Mr. BOEHLERT. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for that cooperation and assurance.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Science be allowed to file the following reports by 4:00 p.m. Friday, July 2: H.R. 4218, High Performance Computing Revitalization Act of 2004; H.R. 4516, Department of Energy High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004; H.R. 3890, To Reauthorize the Steel and Aluminum Energy Conservation and Technology Competitiveness Act of 1988; H.R. 3598, Manufacturing Technology Competitiveness Act of 2004; and H.R. 3980, National Windstorm Impact Reduction Act of 2004.