Recognizing the significance of the anniversary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship Program, and reaffirming the commitment to support the use of science in governmental decisionmaking through such Program.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 279) recognizing the significance of the anniversary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship Program, and reaffirming the commitment to support the use of science in governmental decisionmaking through such Program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 279, the concurrent resolution now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today I am pleased that we are considering this resolution recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship Program coordinated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, better known as AAAS.

This resolution has bipartisan support from 26 cosponsors. It recognizes a truly valuable educational program that gives scientists a wonderful opportunity to step out of the lab and into the political process. By working as legislative assistants in congressional offices, they get a behind-the-scenes look at how our laws are made, writing speeches, developing legislation, and serving as liaisons to committees on which a Member serves. At the same time Members of Congress and other policy makers gain a valuable new resource to help them better understand the scientific and technical issues underpinning complex policy debates.

Six different fellows have served on my staff and each one has used their unique talents and understanding to help shape my legislative agenda. One in particular contributed greatly to this Nation at the time I was rewriting the Nation's science policy at the request of Speaker Gingrich and Chairman Sensenbrenner. Sharon Hayes played a key role in the preparation of that report, which has been widely used and quoted throughout the scientific community.

After 30 years, this program is still going strong. Over 800 scientists have now served Republican, Democratic, and Independent Members of Congress

and many are currently working for Congress and the administration. These individuals have contributed not only their scientific expertise, but also a fresh perspective to policy making. I urge my colleagues to recognize the success of this program by supporting this resolution to honor the AAAS Congressional Fellowship Program.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers at this time. I will reserve the balance of my time.

MS. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for his comments and his co-sponsorship on this resolution. I also thank him for his sponsorship on the previous resolution on National Chemistry Week. He and I, as most people know, are the only two physicists in the Congress and I am told are the only two that have ever served in this Congress. That, I think, is an indictment of the scientific community because we should have more scientists in the Congress, but most scientists tend to shy away from this particular type of activity. But the Fellows that we are honoring here have filled the gap, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) has so clearly outlined. They provide some very badly needed scientific advice.

I recognized the need for this some years ago before there was a fellowship program, and I contacted my Congressman and I worked with him over several years informally advising him on science. His name happened to be Gerald R. Ford. And I was very pleased when he became President and he continued to use some of the advice that I had given him.

The OTA came along and that relieved some of the need for scientific advice; but as we know, the OTA is no longer with us. And so the Fellows are extremely important in maintaining the scientific competence of the Congress, both House and Senate. Many of

the Fellows have returned to their laboratories where they serve as a good liaison between the scientific communities and the Congress. Many others have chosen to stay here; and I have one sitting immediately behind me, Ms. Amy Caroll, who served as science Fellow and now serves as my designee on the Committee on Science, particularly the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards.

In my office I have a scientist Ellen Burns, who is currently my employee, but previously served as a science Fellow; and you will find many former science Fellows in the halls of Congress, in the administration, playing a very vital role in keeping this Nation's governing bodies current in science. So this has been a very valuable enterprise.

I was pleased to be involved in Fellows programs from the very start. I served on one of the first interviewing boards. We have come a long way since then because at that time scientists did not even know what it meant to become involved politically. Now we have a good network, thanks to the AAAS and the sponsoring societies; and it has been very, very beneficial to our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I urge that this resolution be adopted, and I thank all of those who have supported it and cosponsored it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the congressional fellows program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The mission of the AAAS is to ``Advance science and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people''. In pursuit of this mission, in 1973 the AAAS established a fellowship program designed to provide a unique public policy learning experience for scientist and to demonstrate the value of science-government interaction. From an initial cohort of seven Fellows, the AAAS program has grown over thirty years to include nearly one hundred Fellows each year, serving in both Houses of Congress and many agencies of the executive branch. Bringing technical backgrounds that range from astrophysics to veterinary radiology, AAAS Fellows have made important contributions to all areas of government policy. Many former Fellows have remained in Washington at the end of their twelve-month tenure, to become members of the scientific policymaking community. Others have returned to scientific careers with an enhanced appreciation of public policy, sharing this knowledge and experience with colleagues and students.

I have welcomed over twenty AAAS Fellows into my office since 1979 and have been consistently impressed by their contributions to policymaking and advising. They have made a significant positive impact on the quality of life for the people of Massachusetts, the United States, and the world by instilling a measure of science and humanity into the decisions we are asked to make in these chambers every day. I look forward to working with AAAS Fellows for another thirty years.

The following article from the Washington Post provides a useful look back at 30 years of the outstanding achievements of the AAAS science policy program.

[From the Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2003]

Bridging This Gap Isn't Rocket Science

(By Rick Weiss)

In his famous 1959 treatise ``The Two Cultures,'' British

scientist and novelist C.P. Snow decried the divide between

scientists and ``literary intellectuals,'' warning that

society's problems will remain largely intractable as long as

scientists eschew Shakespeare and literary types remain

ignorant about the second law of thermodynamics.

Washington has its own version of that cultural divide--

this one involving scientists and politicians. How can the

nation craft policies in such scientifically complex areas as

embryonic stem cell research, global warming, agricultural

biotechnology and ``Star Wars'' missile defense, experts in

both camps moan, when so many politicians know so little

about science and most scientists remain so clueless about

how policy is made?

Enter the AAAS Science and Technology Fellows Program, a

little-known but influential cultural exchange that serves as

a wormhole between the largely alien universes of science and

politics.

The program--coordinated by the American Association for

the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest general

science organization and publisher of the research journal

Science--places about 60 PhD scientists in congressional and

executive branch offices each fall for one-year stints.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this week, the program gives

scientists a chance to explore the world of policy and

politics while allowing lawmakers and administration

officials to take advantage of the fellows' well-wired

brains.

Scientists learn about a kind of sausage-making that never

came up in their PhD food chemistry courses and bureaucrats

get reminded that the universe cannot run on hot air alone.

Sometimes there is even a profound synthesis. In at least

one case, involving a psychology fellow and a Treasury

official, the cross-pollination between science and politics

got so personal as to culminate in matrimony.

But perhaps the best measure of the program's success is

the ubiquity of former fellows inside the Beltway today. Ten

of about 50 staff members on the House Science Committee--

including the committee's deputy chief of staff--are former

fellows, as is one member of Congress: Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-

N.J.). Other former fellows include the deputy director of

the Department of Homeland Security's Advanced Research

Projects Agency; the new chief science adviser at the State

Department; and the deputy associate director of technology

at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Perhaps no fellow is as appreciative of the program as

psychologist Karen Kovacs North, now assistant dean for the

School of Public Policy and Social Research at the University

of California at Los Angeles. She met her husband in 1994

while on her AAAS stint in the office of Rep. Edward J.

Markey (D-Mass.).

``We met banning Chinese assault weapons,'' she said.

Specifically, she first got Erik North, a Treasury

official, in her cross hairs when he and some colleagues went

to Markey's office to work with her on the wording of the

pending Clinton importation ban.

``They came over with a bunch of guns and it scared the

hell out of me,'' Kovacs North recalled. After months of work

together, with the ban written and passed, it was dinner for

two, long talks into the night ``and the rest,'' Kovac North

said, ``is Hollywood history.''

They married in Malibu, Calif., in 1997. C.P. Snow would

have cried with happiness.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 279 to recognize the importance of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Fellowship Program. For 30 years, the fellowship program has brought together Members of Congress with leading scientific practitioners and scholars in a variety of scientific fields. And this has provided a level of scientific expertise not otherwise found on most congressional staffs, and it presents the congressional fellows with an intimate role in the process of decision-making in public policy.

It is hard to find an issue before this body that does not have significant scientific and technological components, and yet those components often get short-shrifted. I was an AAAS Fellow 20 years ago, in fact, the only alumnus of that program yet to serve in this body, although I am sure that there are some others on the way. I was very fortunate to take part in that program, and I witnessed firsthand the important role that scientific expertise can bring to policy decisions.

Since I have been a Member of Congress for the past 5 years, I have welcomed AAAS Fellows into my staff and fully integrated them into my staff because of the wealth of knowledge they provide and their ability to pose questions. Of course, that is the essence of science, to be able to pose questions. I have benefited from their aptitude, their ability and their energy; and I will, as long as I serve in this body, continue to recruit these motivated and high-qualified experts and do everything I can to make this program a success. It has, in many ways, benefited America.

Let me mention a few of the Fellows who have served with me. Joan Rothenberg joined my staff and shared her expertise on food technology and was integral in developing legislation to provide the public with scientifically based information on biotechnology.

Katy Makeig provided my staff with technical expertise on geology and energy and research and development.

At the time our Nation was struggling with the anthrax attacks, microbiologist Jill Harper worked on my staff on critical issues of bioterrorism and health and homeland security.

Jeffrey Haeni helped to establish here the Congressional Caucus on Research and Development which I think will prove to be an important part of this body.

But it is not so much the specific expertise that these Fellows and that other science Fellows bring; it is the level of comfort with science and technology, the familiarity with science and technology that they bring.

Members of Congress, let me just say, are generally not loath to talk about subjects in which they are not well trained, except in science. My colleagues and I will hold forth on economics or international relations or any number of other things; but when it comes to science, they say, whoa, that is not for me. I am not a scientist. And as a result, many of the aspects of science, many of the aspects of the policy questions before us that involve science and technology do not get the attention they should. That is why this congressional Fellows program, this AAAS science program is so important. It is in many offices the only scientific expertise that is provided. This technical expertise is very valuable to Congress; and it allows not only these Fellows to bring scientific expertise here; it allows them to carry political expertise back to their professions.

So as AAAS celebrates 30 years in the Congressional Fellowship Program, I encourage all of my colleagues to join me, to join the sponsor, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), in recognizing the notable contributions provided by these Fellows, the political expertise that they take back to their professions that enriches our country in so many ways, and to applaud the sponsoring societies for providing the support for these Fellows. It truly is a public service.

The AAAS seeks ``to advance science and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.'' The Congressional Fellowship Program carries that mission beyond the walls of academic institutions and research laboratories and into the legislative process.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 279 that recognizes the 30th anniversary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship Program.

Each year, this fine program brings to Capitol Hill talented individuals representing the natural, physical, and social sciences and all fields of engineering. Since its inception in 1973, over 800 AAAS Fellows have participated in this year-long experience in Congress.

This program is a remarkable partnership between Congress and the 30 or so participating professional societies that select and fund the Fellows. At no cost to Congress, these Fellows offer their substantial expertise and experience to various personal offices and committees in return for the opportunity to be immersed in the legislative process.

I have been fortunate enough to work with many AAAS fellows over my Congressional career. Without exception, they have been valuable additions to my staff. I especially appreciate the real world perspective they bring to us. While I've legislated in health care for several decades, I've never been trained in any of the health care disciplines. Having professionals on my staff who can provide that expertise has proved extremely beneficial and has probably helped keep well meant, but poorly designed legislation from becoming law on more than one occasion.

In my office, a fellow is treated exactly as other members of my staff. They have issue areas of expertise and perform all of the duties necessary to move those issues forward. Fellows have performed many tasks. One initiated innovative legislation to update Medicare's mental health coverage--which we are still attempting to enact years later. A more recent fellow developed legislation to restructure the Individuals with Disabilities Act so that we could meet our federal commitment to fully fund the education of students with disabilities. I could go on and on with examples of their contributions. The AAAS fellows in my office are always focused on health policy and are often psychologists. I know I speak for myself and many other members of my staff in saying that we have found that background useful personally as well as professionally.

The AAAS Fellowship program is a shining example of a collaborative program that benefits all whom participate. The fellows get a strong understanding of the legislative process and Congress gets the benefit of someone with real world expertise in areas in which we legislate.

I want to commend the AAAS for establishing this program and providing the infrastructure and organization that helps maintain its excellence. This program brings much needed scientific expertise to the halls of Congress and helps develop a cadre of scientific

professionals knowledgeable about public policy and the legislative process. I look forward to continuing to work with AAAS fellows. Over the years, they have become an integral part of my staff. Thanks again to AAAS for maintaining this valuable resource for Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 279. This resolution recognizes the 30th anniversary of the Congressional Fellowship Program instituted by the American Association of Advancement of Science. I congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) for taking the initiative to develop this resolution.

The AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship Program has provided congressional committees and Members' offices with scientific and technical expertise that has greatly benefited governmental decision-making for three decades. The Committee on Science has made frequent use of AAAS fellows over the life of the program, and several subsequently have served on the professional staff of the committee.

I know that many of my colleagues have repeatedly sought AAAS fellows for their personal offices because of the quality of the contributions they have made. The issues confronting Congress increasingly involve scientific and technical aspects. Ph.D.-level scientists and engineers serving as congressional fellows bolster the technical expertise available to Members and staff by bringing to bear extensive knowledge and fresh insights and perspectives.

The presence of congressional fellows enhances the public policy formulation process. In addition, the program provides fellows with a window of the policy formulation process and the workings of Congress that they take back to their home institutions. It also provides a mechanism that many fellows have used to transition to careers in public service.

Mr. Speaker, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is to be congratulated for creating this successful and valuable congressional fellows program. And it is appropriate for us to recognize the contributions of more than 800 fellows who have participated in this program since 1973. I urge my colleagues to support this worthy resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.