Brian Baird

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. I thank my friend from Arizona. I would just like to correct the record of the gentleman from Colorado. I know a little bit about Colorado myself. I have lived there. I doubt the gentleman from Colorado has lived in my district. I do happen to know that Battleground, Washington, is not anywhere near the affected area. The affected area encompasses Pacific County and Wahkiakum County on my side of the river, two counties on the gentleman from Oregon's side of the river. Battleground is not there. As far as the massive size of this organization you describe, it is not so large. I appreciate they have a voice. I am happy to listen to the voice. This Congress should listen to the voice. But it should not overwhelm the unanimous sense of the people who sponsored this legislation. The committee jurisdiction has had a hearing on this, and I do not think we want to make it the practice of this body, we certainly never have before, to say that every time a relatively noncontroversial bill has been heard well out in the prior Congress, we have to have another hearing. If the gentleman pretends to say that it is his concern that we try to save the taxpayers' money, having continuous, multiple hearings every time a bill does not quite pass out both bodies, both the House and the Senate, from one Congress to the next, I think it would actually cost the taxpayers a lot more money than you would hope to save. Let me speak to the substance of this. My friend from Oregon said it well. If you know the history of this great country and if you know the history of the Pacific Northwest, there can be no doubt that this area warrants designation such as we think this study will ultimately lend it. My friend mentioned Lewis and Clark. Prior to them, the historical trade that went along among the native tribes at the mouth of the Columbia River was legendary. Lewis and Clark, the first American settlement in the Pacific Northwest, the key to trade with Asia in the early years of this great country, it was this mouth of this river where the first northwest settlement of the United States by Americans expanded. The mouth of this river is a key to the commerce, not only of the Pacific Northwest but the inland Northwest, the greater Northwest where great quantities of grain and other cargos are shipped out. This region has a rich cultural, historical legacy that we need to honor and respect and preserve. That is why the administration supports this bill. That is why our friend and colleague in the other body, Senator Smith, supports this bill. That is why we have I think the unanimous support of both delegations. This should be a noncontroversial bill. The gentleman from Colorado I think has raised rather specious arguments against it, and I think we should pass this fine legislation and move forward with honoring a very richly deserving part of this country with this designation.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. 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. 1867, as amended.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BAIRD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support today of H.R. 1867, the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2007. H.R. 1867 was introduced by myself, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), and several other members of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education. It was ordered reported by the unanimous vote of the Committee on Science and Technology, and is widely supported by industry and academia. The National Science Foundation was last authorized by Congress in 2002 for 5 years, so we are right on track to ensure the continued growth and relevance of this very important agency. The National Science Foundation is the only Federal agency whose mission is to support science and engineering research across all disciplines. Currently NSF funds 20 percent of all basic research conducted at American colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer sciences and social science, NSF is the major source of Federal backing. In its 57-year history, NSF has helped cultivate a scientific research enterprise in which the capacity for creativity and innovation is unrivaled in the world. Some economists estimate that half of the U.S. economic growth since World War II has been the result of technological innovation stemming from basic research and development. NSF also has a mission to achieve excellence in U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics education at all levels and in all settings from kindergarten through postdoctoral training. I don't think we can stress enough the critical leadership role that NSF has in improving STEM education, and I want to especially thank Science and Technology Chairman Gordon for tireless efforts on these issues. In addition to supporting research and education grants at colleges and universities across the country, NSF also helps to support the construction of world-class research facilities and equipment that help to attract the top scientists and engineers from around the world to U.S. universities. As we have seen high-paying jobs outsourced, our children graduating high school well behind their international peers in understanding basic science, other nations surging ahead in export of high-tech products, it has finally sunk in, funding basic research and teaching our kids math and science has a huge impact on our economy, our competitiveness, our national security, and our population's well- being. H.R. 1867, like H.R. 362 and H.R. 363, two other Science and Technology Committee bills that passed the House just last week, is one more important piece of the House leadership's innovation agenda. It is also consistent with the administration's own American Competitiveness Initiative, which called for a 10-year doubling for three science agencies, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. H.R. 1867 was developed with input received during two subcommittee legislative hearings, a number of other NSF policy hearings held over the last many months, and countless informal conversations with NSF stakeholders both inside and outside of government. Dr. Ehlers and I personally traveled over to NSF last month to meet with the Director and all of the Assistant Directors to receive their personal input. In drafting H.R. 1867, we tried to limit it to policy, administrative and budget issues that have arisen since the last authorization in 2002, while leaving the Foundation with maximum flexibility in translating our guidance into practice. Likewise, we minimized the specific carve-outs, especially in the research account, where all of the grants are awarded through a competitive, merit-reviewed process, and where the Foundation often needs to respond quickly to new fields of science and new ways of doing science. I want to especially thank all my colleagues on the committee, especially Dr. Ehlers, Ms. Johnson, Ms. Hooley, Mr. Gingrey, Chairman Gordon and Ranking Member Hall, for helping to improve this bill and move it expeditiously through the committee process. This was a bipartisan effort from beginning to end. Mr. Chair, this bill is critical to American innovation and competitiveness. I urge my colleagues to support passage of H.R. 1867. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley), who has been a tireless member of this subcommittee and has championed the issue of undergraduate research, which is critical in preparing our students for the future.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say how much I appreciate Dr. Ehlers for his wisdom, his knowledge, his friendship and his leadership on this. There are few Members of Congress, or even, I think, few other people in the country who know these issues as well as Dr. Ehlers. He has been a teacher to students for many years and a teacher to those of us on the committee as well. I thank Dr. Ehlers for his fine comments. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), a valued member of the committee who has led critical efforts on this legislation.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, it is a real privilege and honor to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), Chair of the committee. Before he speaks, I just want to say what a privilege it is to serve with him and to offer that years from now, there will be Americans benefiting from technological and scientific innovations and in particular young people, scholars, benefiting from the education initiatives championed by Mr. Gordon. They may not know of the work done. He has done a great job, a bipartisanship approach to this committee. It is a privilege to serve with him.

Mr. BAIRD. At this point I understand Mr. Kirk would like to engage in a colloquy. Would Mr. Ehlers care to yield some time to him for that?

Mr. BAIRD. I very much thank the gentleman for working so closely with us and with Ranking Member Ehlers on this. I absolutely agree with the gentleman from Illinois on the importance of mercury in the Great Lakes, and I applaud him for raising this issue. It is crucial that we continue to gather the necessary data in order to protect current and future generations in the environment from dangerous mercury exposure. I am aware and appreciate the gentleman understands that the National Science Foundation does not generally engage in this type of research, and, as indicated, it is really more the appropriate domain of the Environmental Protection Agency. Accordingly, I will be happy to work with the gentleman from Illinois, and I look forward to the committee providing direction to the U.S. EPA in a letter to that effect.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume in order to engage in a colloquy with the gentlelady from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. BAIRD. I would like to thank the gentlelady for bringing this issue to our attention. It is indeed an important area of research for our Federal Government, and for NSF in particular. I appreciate and respect very much your continued interest and leadership on this. We would be happy to work with you as we proceed towards conference about raising the profile of this issue and the importance of this research.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, to close, let me just once again express my deep gratitude and tremendous respect to Dr. Ehlers for his leadership, not only now as ranking member, but over the years he has served on this committee. Quite literally there has been no more tireless and effective advocate for this legislation and for science in general than Dr. Ehlers. We all respect and admire that and appreciate that greatly. I also want to express my appreciation to Chairman Gordon, whom I acknowledged earlier and thanked for his leadership, Ranking Member Hall. I want to express a special gratitude to my own staff member, Hilary Cain, for her leadership on this and great counsel; as well as the committee staff, Jim Wilson and Dahlia Sokolov for their tireless efforts. They have spent hours and hours on this. We are grateful. With that, as Dr. Ehlers and others have so eloquently said, this is a good bill, it is a bipartisan bill. It has the endorsement of a long list of sponsors, who I did not enumerate here in the interests of time, but virtually every major scientific organization as well as leaders in industry and in academia have endorsed this bill strongly. It is a bill that this committee and this body should pass. I urge its passage. I urge a ``yes'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I wish to reserve a point of order on this particular amendment.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. BAIRD. I continue to reserve.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the sense of what the gentleman is raising with his second order amendment. Having taught science myself, I believe it is absolutely important to share different sides of it. My concern is I think you are sort of micromanaging the education process, however, positive your intent may be. And the gentleman himself just acknowledged that students from K-12 need to have balanced information. I question whether we really want to mandate that a kindergarten teacher educate her or his students on the impact of greenhouse gases on U.S. energy security, global developing nations, et cetera. I think it is a fair point and absolutely an important point that we present different sides of this issue, and I applaud the gentleman for raising that. I would, however, note that the International Panel on Climate Change, which we have had two hearings of in this committee, has clearly unanimously agreed on some general principles: That the climate temperature is increasing; that humans are significantly responsible for at least a substantial portion of that increase; and, that it will have very important consequences for the well-being of the world. So one of the problems I have is the gentleman's amendment would seem to suggest that there is an equal weight of evidence against that perspective as there is in favor of it. And I don't recall if the gentleman attended those two hearings, but if he did, I think it was pretty clear that scientists from around the world do not consider that there is an equal weight among those who might refute the evidence of global warming and the human causes thereof. It is absolutely legitimate that we look at the pros and cons of the various strategies to remedy that; but to micromanage it in this way, which is not what the gentleman from California's initial amendment did, I think is a mistake. I certainly wouldn't want a kindergarten teacher who is trying to educate his or her students about the potential problems of global warming to say, ``Oh, my goodness. I don't have in my curriculum for these 5-year-olds a lesson on the impact of greenhouse gas on developing nations or United States energy security.'' I think a kindergarten teacher might be much more likely to say, ``Hey, kids the world is getting hotter. You and I and your folks can have a role in trying to reduce that problem, and it is in all of our best interests to do so.'' I would hate to see a kindergarten teacher micromanaged like this, however well-intentioned the gentleman's amendment is. And I still reserve the point of order, but if we don't succeed in that, I certainly urge opposition to this at this point.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, at this point I will withdraw the point of order, but I would urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I wish to reserve a point of order on this amendment.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the point of order, but I would like to move to strike the last word.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate and admire and respect the gentleman from Florida, and I understand full well where he is coming from. He has been a passionate supporter of our manned space program, and I share some of his concerns about the impact on that budget. I do think, however, that his offsets are wrong, and that is why I reserved the point of order which in just a moment I will press. There are many, many places in the Federal budget where we could find possible money to support the gentleman's aims, many within, for example, the Commerce appropriations bill. It is possible for the gentleman to adjust revenue impacts of tax cuts. It would be possible for the gentleman to seek offsets or matches through funding for the war in Iraq, which is burning about $2.5 billion per week from our economy. So if the gentleman is interested, as I know he is, in supporting space flight and continued investment in that, I would suggest that more appropriate offsets are available elsewhere in the Federal budget. And I would also say it would be just terribly unfortunate to hold the Science Foundation budget, which this bill authorizes, hostage. You've got the wrong hostage. There are other places where lots more money is being reduced from the revenue stream or being expended on things that may not be in the best long-term national interest of this country. And for that reason, and for the fact that I actually consider the amendment nongermane, I will have to oppose it. Point of Order

Mr. BAIRD. At this point, if it's appropriate to do so, I would wish to press the point of order with the Chair, if that's appropriate procedure at this point.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chair, I have reserved a point of order. The amendment offered by the gentleman is not germane to the bill it is amending and, therefore, violates clause 7 of rule XVI. The underlying section of the bill being amended is specific to the National Science Foundation, while the amendment introduces another unrelated agency, NASA, so the subject matter of the amendment is different than the underlying bill. In addition, the amendment places an unrelated contingency on the authorization of NSF funds. On this point I would cite Deschler's Precedents, Chapter 28, 31.22. Lastly, the purpose of the underlying section of the bill is to authorize appropriations for NSF, while the amendment seeks to affect the appropriations for NASA, so the fundamental purpose of the amendment is different from the underlying provision, and the scope of the underlying provision is significantly enlarged, and, therefore, I would urge that the amendment be ruled out of order. The Acting Chairman. Does any Member wish to be heard on the point of order?

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I appreciate the gentleman's comments about the budget deficit, and I would first suggest that the deficit rose to historic levels under the leadership of the former majority party, largest deficits in the history of this country, indeed, were accrued with President Bush and the former majority. Looking to these studies, some of which are $10,000, now absolutely we must make sure that we spend all the taxpayer dollars wisely. But let me just share with you what the American Association for Advancement of Science, probably the most prestigious scientific body in this country, has said. Prohibiting specific grants sets a dangerous precedent for scientific research that has progressed and advanced for decades through freedom of inquiry into a broad spectrum of subjects. While congressional oversight of Federal programs is, of course, important, second-guessing peer review in this way could compromise the fabric of our public research enterprise one thread at a time. Therefore, we urge you to oppose such amendments. Similar sentiments have been voiced by the Association of American Universities. And I would be tempted to ask the gentleman from California, except he's already stated his piece, why he would be opposing research that has been supported by the United States Army Research Institute; that is seen as critical to the security of our troops serving in Iraq. Now, my wager is the gentleman's saying to himself right now, I have no idea what the chairman is speaking about here. And that's the problem. When you look at a cursory examination of the title, or an abstract, you don't have an idea. That's why we have peer review. Which particular study am I talking about? I'm talking about the Study of the Accuracy of Cross Cultural Understanding of Others' Emotions. What we are talking about here is if you're going to be dealing with people from another culture, and you misread their expression of emotions, it can cost you your life, your buddies their life, or the innocent civilians their lives. The U.S. Army Research Institute believes this is important, and they support the basic elements of this kind of study. I also am not sure, the gentleman seems to suggest, it seems, that we here in the Congress, with a cursory evaluation of the abstracts from studies, should insert ourselves in the peer-review process. I wonder if the gentleman had looked at chemistry research or physics research in the same way, and do we really want to spend this body's time, and do you, sir, or you, sir, have the expertise to evaluate these studies? That's why we have a peer-review process. That's why we have a National Science Foundation. It is why we have a Science Foundation Board to direct us. I absolutely agree that if taxpayer dollars are going to be spent on research, it is incumbent upon the scientist to do the research well, ethically, responsibly, and that it be relevant. But I do not believe it is the place of either side of this aisle to single out particular studies, as has been done in this case, and presume that with a 5- minute examination we know better than peer reviewers who have the degrees in the relevant fields and have spent years studying them and have evaluated them. That is a dangerous precedent to set, and I would urge strongly opposition to this amendment and a similar one which will emerge shortly for the sake of our soldiers.