Bart Gordon

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The amendment I am offering today makes a handful of technical and clarifying changes and a few substantive additions to the underlying bill. Most of the changes were the result of negotiations with our Republican colleagues following our full committee markup. We had agreed to work out several issues during the markup, so let me tell you about those agreements first. Mr. Neugebauer, who wished to ensure that we were leveraging as much private funds as we could in implementing the Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, I agreed to split the match requirement into two categories. The result is that small institutions are also able to participate in this critical program to train STEM teachers, and the large institutions can more easily raise match funds and stretch Federal dollars even further. There was agreement between Dr. Lipinski and Mr. Inglis on the prize program in section 228. They found a good way to make sure that there would not be double-dipping into Federal funds in order to carry out the prize-winning research. Mr. Olson requested some changes in the ARPA-E language, and we went ahead, as agreed, and made those changes in this amendment. Mrs. Biggert had some concerns about the Energy Innovation Hubs and wanted to make sure that the consortia utilized existing facilities when possible, so we made those constructive changes for her. The amendment also included language to clarify the application of existing law which prohibits the use of funding appropriated to programs in the underlying bill for lobbying. I want to thank Dr. Broun for his passion on this issue and for working with me to make this clarification. Finally, this amendment also includes a clarifying change requested by Dr. Bartlett for one of his own amendments in committee on STEM internships. The amendment also adds one new section to the bill. This section requires the Director of NIST to submit a report to Congress examining the use of high-performance computation modeling and simulation by small- and medium-sized manufacturers. There is great potential in the use of high-performance computing resources by small- and medium-sized manufacturers, but their use is relatively limited. This study would look at the current utilization of these resources, examine the existing barriers to their use, and make recommendations for addressing these barriers. I want to thank Chairman Wu, Chairman Lipinski, and Congressman Garamendi for their interest in this issue and for helping to draft this provision. Now let me talk about a part of the manager's amendment that I think will be a topic of discussion on both sides of the aisle today. Mr. Hall rightfully wanted to do something for veterans in this bill. He offered an amendment to the committee that gave veterans preference when applying for any scholarships or fellowships authorized under this bill, and the amendment was happily accepted unanimously in the committee. He also offered an amendment to help disabled veterans who want to pursue STEM studies. I know Mr. Hall was trying to do the right thing, but when we read the language, we didn't think the amendment actually helped disabled veterans in the way Mr. Hall intended. So we had some discussion in the committee, and in the end we decided to accept the amendment as is but continue to work together heading to the floor. Staff traded several versions of language back and forth over the next 10 days. I talked to my staff, Mr. Hall talked with his staff, and, unfortunately, we could not come up with agreement on which language would be most helpful to our common goal of helping disabled veterans without causing other unintended consequences. Our shared goal is to encourage and incentivize colleges and universities to provide STEM programs to disabled veterans and to recruit more disabled veterans into those programs by giving them special consideration in the review of proposals when they do. However, we have to be careful not to dilute the notion of special consideration so far that every institution in the country can qualify. If everyone is special, no one is special. We also want to hold institutions accountable for serving their disabled veterans in their STEM programs. If we give them special consideration without holding them accountable, there is no incentive to actually make sure that veterans get the benefits of the Federal grant funds. Unfortunately, every sincere effort of pro-veteran language that we made was rejected. Once again, where is the accountability? How do we know that a single disabled veteran student is benefiting from Federal STEM programs because the institution has this designation? We don't. That is the problem with the language. It is unfortunate that we could not come to agreement. But in the end, we took Mr. Hall's latest offer with only small changes and included it in the manager's amendment. I still think we can do so much better for disabled veterans. Our language may be improved from Mr. Hall's language, but it still doesn't go nearly as far as I would like it to go in holding institutions accountable. I hope to continue to work with Mr. Hall to make sure that we have this accountability as we move forward. Finally, we borrowed language from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ensure that no funds authorized under this bill can go to child molesters. This is a straightforward amendment incorporating a few suggestions from my colleagues and a small number of other changes to make the bill better, and I urge its adoption. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Woolsey), a very active member of our committee and a champion for women and minorities.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. And I just want to briefly inform my friend, Mr. Hall, that I share his interest in finding a way to run down any defaults and collect those. We were told that our committee didn't have jurisdiction to require the Attorney General to do that. Let us continue to work together to find ways to accomplish what we both want to do. I have no further requests for time, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I have amendments en bloc at the desk.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, let me say that this is a block of amendments that have been well scrutinized by I think the minority and the majority. We feel they are all good amendments. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, Dr. Broun is a valued member of our committee. We've had a number of discussions, as he's been very active. We agree on some things, we don't agree on others. We compromise on some. This is one that we were not able to come to agreement on. All the provisions, and what this would do is this would strike the title V of this bill. All provisions in title V are aimed at looking at creating real world economic value for research and development. Title V includes three important provisions to help spur innovation in this country. It creates a loan guarantee program at the Department of Commerce for small- and medium-sized manufacturers seeking to innovate and retool for the 21st century to remain globally competitive. It establishes an Office of Innovation and Enterprise at the Department of Commerce to help turn the good ideas into new businesses, leading to economic growth and job creation. And, finally, it establishes a Regional Innovation Program at the Department of Commerce to empower local communities to leverage regional strengths to promote innovation. This is a good bill, but this amendment would take away from the bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I rise as the designee for Mr. Boswell and Mr. Michaud and have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment once again has been before the public, well scrutinized. It would ensure that the biomass technology systems and related courses are included in the list of fields that would be encompassed by the energy systems science and engineering education programs at the Department of Energy. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell), the author of this very good amendment. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, it is a good amendment, and I suggest its approval. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I rise as designee for Mr. Davis of Illinois, and I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the author of this amendment, Mr. Davis of Illinois.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier in the day, I don't want to trade Americans' dependency on foreign oil for Americans' dependency on foreign technology. For us to get energy independence, there's going to be a variety of ways to go about it. Just like there's a variety of ways to skin a cat, this is one more way to get energy independence, and I support Mr. Markey's amendment.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I have amendments en bloc at the desk.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, this is a well-vetted and good amendment. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Loretta Sanchez).

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to a former administrator at Long Island College, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I claim time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment from my friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey). This amendment establishes a Green Chemistry Research program at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Gingrey has been an advocate for this both on the committee as well as now. I commend him for that. The emerging field of green chemistry will contribute significantly to our environmental sustainability while also driving innovation in the chemical industry sector. Green chemistry research will be instrumental in meeting the challenges of protecting human health and the environment, meeting our energy needs, enhancing the national security, and strengthening the economy. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. First, let me compliment Mr. Boccieri and his partners for introducing this good amendment. I want to clear up a matter concerning the duplication, title 5, section 502, page 185 under ``coordination and duplication'': ``To the maximum extent practical, the Secretary shall ensure that the activities carried out under this section are coordinated with and do not duplicate the efforts of other loan guarantee programs within the Federal Government.'' This is a good amendment that will label more small- and medium-sized manufacturers to take advantage of loan guarantee programs for innovation, technologies at the Department of Commerce which, in turn, will mean more jobs for Americans.

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. 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. 5116, the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act.