To direct the Secretary of Agriculture to convey certain Federally owned land located in Story County, Iowa.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 554) to authorize activities for support of nanotechnology research and development, 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. 554, the bill now under consideration.

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

H.R. 554 is a bipartisan bill which I and Ranking Member Hall jointly introduced along with 20 additional Democratic and Republican cosponsors. H.R. 554 is the same legislation that the House passed by an overwhelming majority of 407-6 votes in the last Congress. I urge my colleagues to again support this legislation as it will strengthen our Nation's competitiveness in the rapidly advancing field of nanotechnology.

I want to begin by thanking my colleague Mr. Hall for working with me to craft this legislation. I also want to thank Dr. Baird and Dr. Ehlers, who have both been instrumental in the development of this bill. As well, I want to thank a former staff director, Jim Wilson, who recently retired but who played a major role in putting this bill together.

Finally, I want to thank all of the members of the Science and Technology Committee on both sides of the aisle for their contributions to this bill and for helping to move it expeditiously and unanimously through the committee last year, and I want to thank them for their support of the legislation again this year.

I would like to spend just a few moments reminding my colleagues as to why nanotechnology is important to the Nation and why we bring this bill before the House for approval today.

The term ``revolutionary technology'' has become a cliche, but nanotechnology truly is revolutionary. We stand at the threshold of an age in which materials and devices can be fashioned atom by atom to satisfy very specific design requirements. Nanotechnology-based applications that were not even imagined a decade ago are being developed today in our universities and in companies across the country. The range of potential applications for nanotechnology is broad, and it will have enormous consequence in electronics, materials, energy transformation, and storage, as well as in medicine and health. Indeed, the scope of this technology is so broad as to leave virtually no product untouched.

The Science and Technology Committee recognized that promise of nanotechnology early on, holding our first hearing a decade ago to review the Federal activities in the field. In 2003, the committee was subsequently instrumental in the development and in the enactment of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, which authorized the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative, or the NNI, as it is called.

The NNI supports productive, cooperative research efforts across a spectrum of disciplines, and it is establishing a network of national facilities for the support of nanoscale research and development. The NNI now receives funding from 13 agencies, and it had a budget of $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2008, which represents a doubling of the budget over 5 years.

The cooperation and planning process among the participating agencies has been largely effective. Therefore, H.R. 554 does not substantially alter the NNI, but makes adjustments to some of the priorities of the program, and it strengthens one of its core components--environmental and safety research.

Nanotechnology is advancing rapidly. Currently, at least 800 products contain nanoscale materials. The successful development of nanotechnology-related products can only occur if the potential downsides of the technology are addressed from the beginning and in a straightforward and open way.

We know too well that negative public perceptions about the safety of a technology can have serious consequences for its acceptance and use. This has been the case with nuclear power and with genetically modified foods. From the beginning, the NNI has included research to understand the environmental and safety aspects of nanotechnology, and last year, the NNI formally developed a strategy for nanotechnology-related environmental and safety research. However, a National

Academies assessment found the strategy inadequate ``to gain public acceptance and realize the promise of nanotechnology.''

H.R. 554 addresses this concern by requiring that the NNI agencies develop a plan for the environmental and safety research component of the program, which includes explicit near-term and long-term goals, which specifies the funding required to reach those goals, which identifies the role of each participating agency, and which includes a roadmap for implementation.

The bill also assigns responsibility to a senior official at the Office of Science and Technology Policy to oversee this planning and implementation process and to ensure the agencies allocate the resources necessary to carry it out. A well-designed, adequately funded and effectively executed research program in this area is the essential first step to ensuring that sound science guides the formulation of regulatory rules and requirements. It will reduce the current uncertainty that inhibits the commercial development of nanotechnology, and it will provide a sound basis for future rulemaking.

Another key component of H.R. 554 that I want to highlight involves provisions in the bill aimed at capturing the economic benefits of nanotechnology. In 2007, $60 billion nano-enabled products were sold, and it is predicted that the number will rise to $2.6 trillion by 2014. Too often, the U.S. has been the leader in basic research, pushing the frontiers of science and technology, but has failed to commercialize those discoveries. To that end, H.R. 554 strengthens public-private partnerships by encouraging the creation of industry liaison groups to foster nanotechnology transfer and to help guide the NNI research agenda. The bill also promotes the use of nanotechnology research facilities to assist companies in the development of prototypes.

Additionally, to increase the relevance and value of NNI, the bill authorizes large-scale, focused, multi-agency research and development initiatives in areas of national need. For example, such efforts could be organized around developing a replacement for the silicon-based transistor or by developing new nanotechnology-based devices for harvesting solar energy.

Lastly, the legislation addresses future STEM workforce needs by supporting the development of undergraduate courses in nanotechnology fields and by creating education partnerships between nanotechnology companies and secondary schools.

Mr. Speaker, nanotechnology will soon touch the lives of all Americans. It is already in our cell phones, cosmetics, paints, and refrigerators. It will soon help to protect the lives of our police officers and military servicemen, and it is showing promise in the treatment of cancer and in promoting wound healing. There is no doubt that the potential for this technology is vast.

The bill before us today has the support of many business, professional and higher education associations that recognize that H.R. 554 will enhance America's efforts in nanotechnology research and development, ensuring that nanotechnology is developed in a safe and environmentally benign way and ensuring that the Nation reaps the benefits of our research investment.

Mr. Speaker, I commend this bipartisan legislation to my colleagues, and urge their support for its passage by the House.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and ranking member, Mr. Hall.

I yield now 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I want to just make my friend from Missouri feel better and let him know that at 3 o'clock today there is a bicameral, bipartisan conference that will be held. And so I just wanted to give him that comfort.

And now I want to yield the balance of my time to the gentlelady from Pennsylvania (Mrs. Dahlkemper), a very active and important member of the Science and Technology Committee.

Mr. Speaker, let me just close by again giving my friend some comfort to know that at 3 o'clock today there's going to be a bicameral, bipartisan conference, conferees appointed by the Speaker for the Democrats and by Mr. Boehner for the Republicans. We all look forward to steady progress.

And I will finally close by again thanking Mr. Hall for his help as well in putting together this good, bipartisan bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 554, reauthorizing the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the NNI.

I want to commend Chairman Gordon and Ranking Member Hall for their hard work in crafting this important bill and thank all of the Members on both sides of the aisle and the Science and Technology Committee for their hard work last year on quickly doing a great job getting this done, getting it to the floor where we passed it. Now, hopefully this year, as we move quickly--we're off to a quick start thanks to Chairman Gordon. We can finally get this reauthorization done this year.

I really firmly believe that nanotech represents one of the most important--if not the most important--technological keys to improving our Nation's future economic growth and improving our way of life.

Now, a lot of people don't know what nanotech is. I want to really thank Ranking Member Hall for his great and impressive tutorial he gave on what nanotech is. It may be one of the most important things that people could learn from listening to the floor today.

Nanotech is the next industrial revolution. It is so critical that we take the necessary steps in this reauthorization so that our country remains on the cutting edge of this revolution.

Nanotech has the potential to deliver many revolutionary advances, from energy efficient, low-emission ``green'' manufacturing systems, to inexpensive portable water purification systems that provide universal access to safe water.

Nanotechnology has the potential to impact every sector of our economy. In just 6 years, the global market for nanoscale materials and products is expected to reach $2.6 trillion and to be incorporated into 15 percent of the global manufacturing output.

The NNI has been effective in supporting productive, cooperative research efforts across a wide spectrum

of disciplines. The Initiative has established a network of state-of- the-art national facilities that are conducting groundbreaking work in nanoscale research and development. These centers of excellence have helped the U.S. lead the world in development and expansion of nanotechnology, leadership that has been vital to economic development and essential to the creation of innovative jobs leading to a stronger and more competitive America.

My home State of Illinois is one of the leaders in nanotech research. Many universities and businesses have become deeply invested through programs like the NNI. For example, my alma mater, Northwestern University, houses the Institute for Nanotechnology, which supports research and facilitates collaboration in solving major problems such as finding more precise ways to deliver chemotherapy, along with other medical applications of nanotech.

The Institute includes the Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly, a multimillion-dollar research facility and one of the first federally funded centers of its kind. It helps foster partnerships to encourage researchers and entrepreneurs to become involved in this cutting-edge field, creating jobs and potential for entirely new industries.

Now, the reauthorization of the NNI includes three significant adjustments. First, it strengthens the planning and implementation of research on environmental health and safety aspects of nanotech ensuring that possible unintended impacts of nanotech products will not defeat the enormous promise of this technology. We need to make sure that people are confident in nanotech, and we need to make sure we can be confident in the safety of nanotech. That's one of the critical things that this reauthorization does with the NNI.

Second, it requires the NNI to place increased emphasis on technology transfer, which entails moving basic research results out of the lab and into commercial products. From my own experience in Illinois with our national labs and research universities, I know that technology transfer is not simple, but it is an important part of ensuring that R&D investments serve the public. Remember, we, the American people, are making these investments. We need to do everything we can that we have technology transfers, that everything that is found, everything developed, is something that we can bring to market.

And finally, this reauthorization creates new education programs to attract secondary school students to science and technology studies and to help prepare the nanotechnology workforce of tomorrow. As a former educator and as chairman of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee, I understand the vital role of education in promoting the success of individual Americans, and more broadly, the economic competitiveness of our Nation.

The field of nanotechnology holds great promise for our future, and it's critical that we do all that we can to help ensure that America leads the way in nanotech innovation. H.R. 554 will place the U.S. in a key position to drive technology breakthroughs and go even further to ensuring our long-term competitiveness in the global economic marketplace.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the passage of H.R. 554, move this authorization forward and get this done this year so we can keep America moving forward on the cutting edge of this new revolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. And let me say to start with that I am in complete agreement, as approximately 407 of our Members-plus will be with the gentleman from Texas, the gentleman from Tennessee, and the gentleman from Illinois. I appreciate the work Mr. Gordon and Mr. Hall have done to get this bill to the floor.

In fact, Missouri State University, right next to my home in Springfield, has a leading project going on in nanotechnology. I think it is important. I was one of those 407 people that voted for this bill last year. I expect a vote for this bill today.

And as Mr. Cohen earlier said, as a Member of the minority, I want to talk about what we're not doing on the floor today. I want to talk about the fact that somewhere, while we're out here debating a bill where we'll spend $1 million a year that's already passed the House last year, 407-6, somewhere in this building--and that's significant because I don't know where it is and I don't think the Republican conferees, all two of them, know either--somewhere in this building, meetings are going on to decide how we spend $800 billion.

For $800 billion, if I could use the analogy that Mr. Hall used, if the thickness of this paper is 100,000 nanometers, the thickness of this paper is 100,000 nanometers, if you stacked these pieces of paper one on top of each other, 27\1/2\ feet high, you'd be at 800 billion nanometers.

So if pieces of paper represented $100,000, you'd have to be 27\1/2\ feet high to be to $800 billion. This is a huge amount of money. And later, if greater experts than me at nanotechnology figure out that it's only 26 feet, it's still a lot of money. It's $800 billion.

Last year when we worked together on a stimulus package--not the case this year--we said, the Speaker said, I said, others said, a stimulus package has to be timely, it has to be targeted, it has to be temporary. And I'd advance the idea that this is none of those. It's certainly not timely. Alice Rivlin said the other day--this is the former budget director for President Clinton--no more than one out of ten of these dollars can be spent this year. There are some other estimates that, well, maybe it's as high as two out of ten.

So my question is, why are we spending the other 80 or 90 percent as if it was a stimulus package as opposed to just something somebody in this building wants to do and in fact is going to do for a long time which comes to targeted.

I'd also suggest that more than anything else, this bill is a collection of what the new majority has wanted to do for a decade. I believe I could go through the debates of the House over the last 10 years and find virtually every single thing in this bill having been proposed some time during the last 10 years and we didn't do it because sometimes because the majority thought it was a bad idea, often because the majority at that time, the other side, my side, thought we just simply couldn't afford it.

And temporary? The last dollar to be spent in that bill wherever it's being developed is spent in 2019. Not timely, not temporary, not targeted. And if you're measuring it in money, lots of nanometers of money. In fact, the bill that we think we saw earlier the size of, the total cost per page of that bill was over $7 million. The total cost per word, rather, was $7 million. The total cost per page was $1.2 billion.

One thing the Congress will do in all likelihood this week is set a record that won't be challenged for a long time in how fast we can spend how much money. We're going to make nanotechnology look like it's an old science compared to the new technology of spending money.

So while we're debating this bill that absolutely will pass, that there is virtually unanimous agreement on, some group of people in the majority of the House and Senate is deciding what that big bill is going to look like. And believe me, most of us will have no idea what's in it the day we vote for it. It will be impossible to know, and only over the next 6 months when the American people find out what's in that bill, will Members of Congress begin to wish that they had not voted for the bill today and taken the time this kind of spending deserves.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 554, the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments Act.

I commend Chairman Bart Gordon and the other members of the Science and Technology Committee, on which I am proud to have once served, for the hard work and thoughtful consideration that went into this bill. I am pleased that this bill includes numerous provisions that I originally proposed in my own legislation, the Nanotechnology Advancement and New Opportunities (NANO) Act, H.R. 820.

Nanotechnology has the potential to create entirely new industries and radically transform the basis of competition in other fields, and I am proud of my work with former Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert on the Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003 to foster research in this area.

But one of the things policymakers have heard from experts is that while the United States is a leader in nanotechnology research, our foreign competitors are focusing more resources and effort on the commercialization of those research results than we are.

Both H.R. 554 and my own bill would focus America's nanotechnology research and development programs on areas of national need such as energy , health care, and the environment, and have provisions to help assist in the commercialization of nanotechnology.

In recent months, there has been much discussion about potential health and safety risks associated with nanotechnology. Uncertainty is one of the major obstacles to the commercialization of nanotechnology-- uncertainty about what the risks might be and uncertainty about how the federal government might regulate nanotechnology in the future. Both my bill and H.R. 554 require the development of a nanotechnology research plan that will ensure the development and responsible stewardship of nanotechnology.

Other important areas that are addressed by both H.R. 554 and H.R. 820 include: the development of curriculum tools to help improve nanotechnology education; the establishment of educational partnerships to help prepare students to pursue postsecondary education in nanotechnology; support for the development of environmentally beneficial nanotechnology; and the development of advanced tools for simulation and characterization to enable rapid prediction, characterization and monitoring for nanoscale manufacturing.

I am also pleased that H.R. 554 will require that the NNI Advisory Panel must be a stand-alone advisory committee. This is a concept I originally proposed in 2002 in the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Advisory Board Act (H.R. 5669 in the 107th Congress).

I would like to thank the members of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology (BRTFN), a panel of California nanotechnology experts with backgrounds in established industry, startup companies, consulting groups, non-profits, academia, government, medical research, and venture capital that I convened with then-California State Controller Steve Westly during 2005, for the important recommendations included in its report, Thinking Big About Thinking Small, many of which are reflected in the bill we are considering today. I would also like to thank Scott Hubbard, who was the Director of the NASA Ames Research Center at that time and who served as working chair of the BRTFN, and all of the staff at Ames whose hard work made the task force run so well and helped produced a great report. The report is available on my Web site at http://honda.house.gov/issues/links/brtfn_report_final.pdf.

Again, I congratulate the Science and Technology Committee and Chairman Gordon for their work on this bill and thank them for incorporating so many of the provisions from my bill into H.R. 554, and I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation to reauthorize the nation's nanotechnology research and development program.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today, of course, in support of H.R. 554, the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments of 2009.

This initiative was first named in the 2001 budget request, and it was made a priority by the previous administration. Last year, we created a necessary and responsible reauthorization bill for this important program. The House took an already good statute and improved it just a bit to streamline some administrative issues and to ensure that areas such as nanomanufacturing, education and environmental health and safety are adequately recognized. Unfortunately, the Senate did not act on it prior to adjournment, so we will try it again with the same bill this year.

Just what is ``nanotechnology,'' and why is it important?

Well, according to the NNI Web site, ``Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter . . . at dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers.''

Now, a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. To put it into perspective, this piece of paper that I am reading from is 100,000- nanometers thick. It is 100,000 nanometers. The fact that our scientists and engineers can create and manipulate matter on that small of a scale to be used in electronic, biomedical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, energy, catalytic, and materials applications is mind boggling. It is the kind of research and technology that makes the United States the leader in innovation.

It is important that we continue to make this area of research a national priority. There are numerous examples of nanotechnology being used today. Not only is it being used to create clean, secure energy, but its uses range from stain-free clothing to glare-resistant eyewear to car bumpers to improved tennis balls. Nanotechnology is also being utilized to cut down on drug counterfeiting and to improve computer capacity. The list is long, and the potential for nanotechnology at this time is endless.

Once again, I am pleased to join Chairman Gordon. He is a good chairman to work with. As well, the overwhelming majority of our committee members are good folks on both sides of the aisle. We do work together, and I am honored to be an original cosponsor of the NNI Amendments Act of 2009. This has been a bipartisan effort from the beginning. While we have made some changes to the program, I believe that, by and large, we have continued to give the NNI and all of the Federal agencies involved with it the flexibility needed to do their work without being overly prescriptive.

I support this measure, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. Likewise, I hope my friends in the Senate will do a better job this year and will soon follow suit.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Colonel Pitts, the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I yield the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) 2 minutes.

I yield the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) 2 minutes.

(Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the chairman of the House Republican Conference, the gentleman

from Indiana (Mr. Pence) for 3 minutes.

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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