To provide for the establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing two pieces of legislation: H.R. 4434, the ``10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds'' Science and Math Scholarship Act and H.R. 4435, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E, Act. These two bills authorize a set of recommendations from a committee of the National Academy of Sciences chaired by Mr. Norman Augustine. The recommendations of the committee's report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, reflect the consensus forged among nationally-recognized industry, academic and government experts.

The Augustine Committee's highest priority is to improve K-12 math and science education by enhancing the skills and qualifications of math and science teachers. The ``10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds'' Act establishes a National Science Foundation, NSF, program to award scholarships to science, math, and engineering students if they obtain their teaching certification and commit to becoming math and science teachers upon completing their degrees. The bill also authorizes NSF to establish a master's degree program for in-service science and math teachers and establish training programs for preparing science and math teachers to teach Advanced Placement, AP, and International Baccalaureate, IB, courses in science and math. In addition, legislation also authorizes summer teacher training institutes at NSF and the Department of Energy.

The Augustine Committee stressed the need to ``sustain and strengthen the nation's traditional commitment to the long-term basic research that has the potential to be transformational to maintain the flow of new ideas that fuel the economy, provide security, and enhance the quality of life.'' One specific action recommended by the Augustine Committee is to create in the Department of Energy, DOE, an organization like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, at the Department of Defense. My second piece of legislation, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E, Act implements this key recommendation. It establishes within the DOE a new agency modeled after DoD's successful DARPA program. By supporting high-risk, potentially high-payoff research, ARPA-E will turn cutting-edge science and engineering into technologies for energy and environmental application with the goal of reducing the Nation's reliance of foreign energy sources by 20 percent during the next 10 years.

These two bills are a response to a serious challenge to our Nation's future economic prosperity. From the Augustine report, ``This Nation must prepare with great urgency to preserve its strategic and economic security. Because other Nation's have, and probably will continue to have, the competitive advantage of a low-wage structure, the United States must compete by optimizing its knowledge-based resources, particularly in science and technology, and by sustaining the most fertile environment for new and revitalized industries and the well- paying jobs they bring. We have already seen that capital, factories, and laboratories readily move wherever they are thought to have the greatest return.'' I fully acknowledge that these two bills together would require a sizable amount of funds to implement fully. Given the stakes, I believe we must find a way to make this investment in our Nation's future. The authorization levels are based upon the National Academy of Sciences estimates of the funding levels required to implement the recommendations in its report.

The Augustine Report correctly identifies the challenges we face as a nation and has developed a series of specific recommendations to address these challenges. Today's Washington Post, includes the op-ed Learning to Lose? Our Education System Isn't Ready for a World of Competition by Mr. Norman Augustine which highlights the urgency of taking immediate actions and the consequences if we don't. I have included Mr. Augustine's op-ed in this statement.

My intent in introducing these two bills is to issue a call for action by the Congress and the administration. The conclusions and recommendations in this report are not new. The problem is that neither the administration nor Congress has made any real efforts to act. I hope the introduction of these two bills will begin a substantive discussion on the commitment and resources required to ensure our Nation's future economic competitiveness and that our children have access to well-paid, challenging jobs.

I am committed to working with the private-sector, Members of Congress and the administration in turning this legislation into funded programs.

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2005]

Learning to Lose? Our Education System Isn't Ready for a World of

Competition

(By Norman R. Augustine)

In the five decades since I began working in the aerospace

industry, I have never seen American business and academic

leaders as concerned about this nation's future prosperity as

they are today.

On the surface, these concerns may seem unwarranted. Two

million jobs were created in the United States in the past

year. Citizens of other nations continue to invest their

savings in this country at a remarkable rate. Our nation

still has the strongest scientific and technological

enterprise--and the best research universities--in the world.

But deeper trends in this country and abroad are signs of a

gathering storm. After the Cold War, nearly 3 billion

potential new capitalists entered the job market. A

substantial portion of our workforce now finds itself in

direct competition for jobs with highly motivated and often

well-educated people from around the world. Workers in

virtually every economic sector now face competitors who live

just a mouse click away in Ireland, Finland, India, China,

Australia and dozens of other nations.

Soon the only jobs that will not be open to worldwide

competition are those that require near physical contact

between the parties to a transaction. Visitors to an office

not far from the White House are greeted by a receptionist on

a flat-screen display that controls access to the building

and arranges contacts; she is in Pakistan. U.S. companies

each morning receive software that was written in India

overnight in time to be tested in the United States and

returned to India for further refinement that same evening.

Drawings for American architectural firms are produced in

Brazil. Call-center employees in India are being taught to

speak with a Midwestern accent.

This movement of U.S. jobs to other countries has few

natural limits. Manufacturing jobs were the first to go, but

jobs developing software and conducting various design

activities soon followed. Administrative and support jobs are

starting to move overseas, and even ``high-end'' jobs such as

professional services, research and management are

threatened.

Other nations will continue to have the advantage of lower

wages, so the United States

must compete on the basis of its strengths. Throughout the

20th century, one of these strengths was our knowledge-based

resources--particularly science and technology. But the

scientific and technological foundations of our economic

leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are

building their innovative capacity.

This nation's trade balance in high-technology goods swung

from a positive flow of $33 billion in 1990 to a negative

flow of $24 billion in 2003. Two years from now, for the

first time ever, the most capable high-energy particle

accelerator in the world will be outside the United States.

Low-wage employers in this country, such as McDonald's and

Wal-Mart, create many more jobs than do high-wage employers.

In 2001 U.S. industry spent more on tort litigation and

related costs than on research and development.

Today, high-technology firms have to be on the leading edge

of scientific and technological progress to survive. Intel

Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett has said that 90 percent of the

products his company delivers on the final day of each year

did not exist on the first day of the same year. To succeed

in that kind of marketplace, U.S. firms need employees who

are flexible, knowledgeable, and scientifically and

mathematically literate.

But the U.S. educational system is failing in precisely

those areas that underpin our competitiveness: science,

engineering and mathematics. In a recent international test

involving mathematical understanding, U.S. students finished

27th among the participating nations. In China and Japan, 59

percent and 66 percent, respectively, of undergraduates

receive their degrees in science and engineering, compared

with 32 percent in the United States.

I've recently had an opportunity to review these trends as

chairman of a 20-member committee created by the National

Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and

the Institute of Medicine. Congress asked the committee to

examine the threats to America's future prosperity. The panel

was a diverse group that included university presidents,

Nobel laureates, heads of companies and former government

officials. We agreed unanimously that the United States faces

a serious and intensifying economic challenge from abroad--

and that we appear to be on a losing path.

Our committee emphasized that the United States needs to

focus on fundamentals. We recommended the recruitment of

10,000 new science and math teachers each year through the

awarding of competitive scholarships. The skills of a

quarter-million current teachers should be improved through

enhanced training and education. We recommended establishing

25,000 competitive science, mathematics, engineering and

technology undergraduate scholarships and 5,000 graduate

fellowships.

To boost scientific and technological innovation, we

recommended that the U.S. government increase research

funding by 10 percent annually over the next several years,

with primary attention devoted to the physical sciences,

engineering, mathematics and information sciences. We urged

the federal government to create an Advanced Research

Projects Agency--Energy (ARPA-E), modeled after the Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency, which would support out-

of-the-box, transformative research aimed at ending our

crippling dependence on foreign sources of energy. We asked

the government to provide permanent tax incentives for U.S.-

based innovation.

The United States wants other nations to do well

economically. Broadly based prosperity can make the world

more stable and safer for all. What worries business leaders

is that the United States could easily fall behind as the

rest of the world prospers.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6203) to provide for Federal energy research, development, demonstration, and commercial application activities, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 6203, the bill now under consideration.

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

I rise today in strong support of H.R. 6203, the Alternative Energy and Research Development Act.

As its title suggests, this bill is designed to advance development of a number of alternative energy technologies by establishing policy goals and focusing research on key technical challenges.

Building on the excellent R&D provisions the Science Committee included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, or EPACT, H.R. 6203 supports the development of biofuels from cellulose, meaning feedstocks other than corn; biodegradable natural plastics from biomass; technologies for hydrogen storage onboard vehicles; advanced solar technologies that are economical and make solar power cost competitive in a decade; technologies that minimize the cost and environmental impact and maximize the efficiency of harnessing the power of the wind; and advanced battery technologies specifically for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

In addition to requiring the DOE to continue carrying out the geothermal energy, hydropower distributor and cogeneration research authorized in EPACT, H.R. 6203 supports research to convert coal into pipeline quality gaseous fuels.

The bill also promotes energy conservation in three important ways. First, it provides incentives for the construction of energy efficient buildings. Today's buildings consume 50 percent of the Nation's supply of natural gas and 70 percent of its electricity, more energy than any other sector of the economy, including industry and transportation.

Second, the bill offers grants to States who deploy solar cells and purchase plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Finally, it establishes a cooperative extension program to encourage the use of advanced energy technologies patterned after the successful agricultural extension programs that aided farmers in incorporating advanced technologies and food production.

H.R. 6203 is a modified version of H.R. 5656, which was approved by the Science Committee in July. Like most bills that emerge from the Science Committee, H.R. 6203 represents a compilation of great ideas from a number of members of the committee, including my colleagues from Texas, Lamar Smith and Mike McCaul. And I would especially like to thank the ranking member, Mr. Gordon, for his leadership and his additions to the bill. The bill was further perfected in committee by Representatives Ralph Hall, Doris Matsui, Lynn Woolsey, Sheila Jackson- Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ken Calvert, Al Green, Brian Baird, and Brad Miller. I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for their contributions. H.R. 6203 is the product of a truly bipartisan effort.

Mr. Speaker, high natural gas prices and the summer spike in gasoline prices serve as a stark reminder that the path to energy independence is a long and arduous one.

To make significant progress down this path requires a steadfast commitment from Congress and the Federal Government to support the development of advanced energy technologies and alternative fuels that will help end our addiction to oil and gasoline.

The bill we are considering today would do just that in a fiscally responsible way. In some cases, it gives new direction to research funding authorized in EPACT. In others, the House already has appropriated funds for the programs.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 6203.

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

Mr. Speaker, I recognize a valuable member of the Science Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) for 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize another member of the Science Committee who has worked hard in this area, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCall), for 2 minutes.

Mr. McCALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank Congresswoman Biggert for her leadership on this bill. We have worked very hard to get to this point to get this bill on the floor. I was very proud to be a part of it. I thank you again for your leadership. And I thank Congressman Kirk for helping us in this effort and my colleague from Texas, Mr. Smith, for his hard work.

This alternative energy legislation is crucial for America. But it isn't just an alternative energy issue. It is also very much a national security issue. For some time now, we in the Congress have been pushing towards reducing America's addiction to foreign sources of oil. This is a giant step in the right direction. This bill will provide research and development for energy independence, for clean energy technologies, for plug-in hybrid vehicles, solar power, wind, biofuels, clean coal technologies, and hydrogen.

If passed, this visionary legislation will put us on the track to provide cheaper and more reliable alternatives to fossil fuels and will work to provide a cleaner environment for our children and our grandchildren.

I want to thank our colleagues on the other side of the aisle for their strong support of this legislation as well. It is an important bill for America's energy future.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), who is not a member of the Science Committee but has been so helpful as a member of the Policy Committee and of the Appropriations Committee, and I yield 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). He has been the chairman of the Suburban Caucus, and this bill has been on the Suburban Caucus list for those bills that are important to not only suburban areas but all over the country, and I yield 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), a long-time member of the Science Committee, for 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to Mr. Bartlett from Maryland.

Before I close, Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert in the Record an exchange of letters between the Committees on Science and Education and the Workforce.

Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of

Representatives, 2181 Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC, September 29, 2006.

Hon. Sherwood Boehlert,

Chairman, Committee on Science, 2320 Rayburn HOB, Washington,

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

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation to complement two previously introduced bills, H.R. 4434 and H.R. 4435, to authorize additional recommendations from a committee of the National Academy of Sciences, chaired by Mr. Norman Augustine. The recommendations of the committee's report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, reflect the consensus forged among nationally-recognized industry, academic and government experts.

With this bill, Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act, and the previously introduced bills, I have taken steps to implement the Augustine Committee's highest priority, which is to improve K-12 math and science education by enhancing the skills and qualifications of math and science teachers, and to respond to the committee's call to ``sustain and strengthen the nation's traditional commitment to the long-term basic research that has the potential to be transformational to maintain the flow of new ideas that fuel the economy, provide security, and enhance the quality of life.''

The bill I introduced today authorizes 10% increases per year in funding for basic research in the physical sciences, mathematical sciences, and engineering at the principal federal agencies supporting such research. These increases, if sustained, would lead to a doubling of basic research funding in these critical areas over 7 years.

The bill also takes action to develop the research talent needed for the future by providing for up to 200 new awards per year, of $100,000 per year for 5 years, to outstanding early-career researchers. It seeks to enlarge the pool of graduate students in science, math and engineering by creating a graduate fellowship program, with 5000 new fellowships per year for individuals pursuing studies in areas of national need.

Finally, the bill establishes a presidential innovation award to stimulate scientific and engineering advances in the national interest and provides for the refurbishment of academic and government research laboratories, an essential factor to enable leading-edge research.

These three bills are a response to a serious challenge to our Nation's future economic prosperity. From the Augustine report, ``This Nation must prepare with great urgency to preserve its strategic and economic security. Because other Nation's have, and probably will continue to have, the competitive advantage of a low-wage structure, the United States must compete by optimizing its knowledge-based resources, particularly in science and technology, and by sustaining the most fertile environment for new and revitalized industries and the well-paying jobs they bring. We have already seen that capital, factories, and laboratories readily move wherever they are thought to have the greatest return.''

My intent in introducing these bills is to issue a call for action by the Congress and the Administration. The Augustine Report correctly identifies the challenges we face as a Nation and has developed a series of specific recommendations to address these challenges. The conclusions and recommendations in this report are not new. The problem is that neither the Administration nor Congress has made any real efforts to act.

I hope the introduction of this legislation will begin a substantive discussion on the commitment and resources required to ensure our Nation's future economic competitiveness and that our children have well-paid, challenging jobs. I am committed to working with the private-sector, Members of Congress and the Administration in turning this legislation into funded programs.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Biggert and Mr. Gordon for their leadership.

For 6 years, I have had the privilege of serving as the co-Chair in the House of the Renewable Energy Efficiency Caucus with Mark Udall of Colorado, which is over half of the House. They have a similar caucus in the Senate. There is widespread bipartisan support for these programs. I think it is so important that we do this.

I want to say that one of the under-reported stories of the last 2 years is the impact of last year's energy bill, the final agreement. I didn't support the House bill, but I supported the final bill because the Senate made it so much better, advanced especially the production of ethanol. There are at least 41 new ethanol plants under construction across America today because alternative fuels is what we need to advance.

Leadership cries out for us to do what we need to do for the next generation with respect to energy, regardless of what energy costs today. Some people think if it is $4 a gallon you have to make changes, but if it is $2 a gallon you don't need to. No, we need to. And leadership cries out for us to be aggressive.

And I am a conservative. Sometimes conservatives forget we are supposed to conserve, to save, to be efficient. Plus our dependence on other sources of energy is causing our country to not be independent and to really be vulnerable. So this is a security issue.

I think, frankly, if we don't do things like this we are being penny- wise and pound-foolish. These initiatives are real. They are substantive. This is a great first step.

It is really a second step. I think EPACT was the first step. This is the second step. I would even argue next year we need to do a third step and continue to advance this cause.

We didn't balance the budget for 3 years by cutting spending. We did slow the rate of growth of spending, but we balanced the budget because the economy grew because we led the world in information. Earl Blumenauer, from out on your side of this country. The Microsoft explosion was a robust, U.S. manufacturing export-driven economy where revenues surpassed expenses and we balanced the budget.

We can do that again, solving the world's energy problems because we are the smartest people in the world. A dynamic, export-driven economy if we will invest in energy solutions for the world, and you can't just expect it to happen. The government plays a role. We have to lead on this issue.

This is a double negative, but I with close with this: We cannot afford not to do this. That is what the House needs to understand. We cannot afford not to do this. Please support this bill, move it forward, and then let's go further in the 110th Congress.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Reclaiming my time, thank you for your leadership, and thank you, Mrs. Biggert.

Mr. Speaker, there have been in the last couple of years two major government-sponsored studies on energy. One was a big SAIC report, commonly called the Hirsch Report. The other was a more recent report by the Corps of Engineers, and both of them reached essentially the same conclusion.

The world has either peaked in oil production, conventional oil production, or it will shortly peak in oil production with potentially devastating consequences. The Hirsch report said that the world has never faced a problem like this, that mitigation consequences will be unprecedented.

Today I got across my desk a flyer from a group here on the Hill that said that we ought to be cautious about this suspension vote because some new programs were suggested here. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that some new programs are suggested here because the reality is the Hirsch report said if you didn't anticipate the peaking of oil, in 20 years there were going to be economic consequences.

We knew 25 years ago that this was a reality. By 1980, 1981, we absolutely knew that M. King Huppert was right. The United States had peaked in 1970. We are well down that slope now. He predicted the world would be peaking about now.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that there are a lot of new programs in here because we don't have 10 years. We don't have 20 years. I think we have essentially run out of time. We have run out of energy.

And don't be lulled into complacency by this find of oil in the gulf. Instead of our responding, saying here is some energy and we can invest in alternatives, what we have said is, I don't need to buy that hybrid now; I can now buy an SUV. We have exactly the wrong response to this.

Please, this is a great bill. I hope there are new programs in it. My only complaint with the bill is it doesn't have enough new programs in it.

Thank you very much for a great bill. Everybody should vote ``yes'' on this.

Mr. Speaker, we have 2 percent of the nonreserves of oil. We use 25 percent of the world's oil. We import almost two-thirds of what we use. Ten years from now when we look back, our regret is going to be that there wasn't ten times as much money in this bill for these programs.

This is desperately needed. The market is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It will not solve this problem. If this government does not solve it, it won't be solved because the private sector cannot do it. We need real leadership in this area, and that is a major responsibility of government.

And again I say mark it down. Ten years from now you will look back and say why wasn't there ten times as much money in that bill because we really needed it?

This falls far short of what we ought to be doing, but at least it is something. Please vote for it.