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“ENDLESS FRONTIER ACT--Resumed” mentioning Todd Young was published in the Senate section on pages S2752-S2755 on May 19.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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The publication is reproduced in full below:
ENDLESS FRONTIER ACT--Resumed
Thereupon, the Senate resumed consideration of the bill (S. 1260) to establish a new Directorate for Technology and Innovation in the National Science Foundation, to establish a regional technology hub program, to require a strategy and report on economic security, science, research, innovation, manufacturing, and job creation, to establish a critical supply chain resiliency program, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Schumer amendment No. 1502, in the nature of a substitute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The Senator from Washington.
Amendment No. 1527
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1527.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Washington [Ms. Cantwell] proposes an amendment numbered 1527 to amendment No. 1502.
The amendment is as follows
AMENDMENT NO. 1527
(Purpose: To improve the bill)
On page 304, line 18, strike ``3'' and insert ``4''.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, we come to the floor today after a lot of hard work by the Commerce Committee to pass out the Endless Frontier bill last week--24 to 4. I know my colleagues from the committee will be out here to speak on this important legislation, as will the majority leader, Senator Schumer, who authored this important legislation, and our colleague from Indiana, Senator Young. We thank them for kick-starting what is a very important national discussion about how much we should be investing in research and development or what I would say is American ingenuity or, to put it a little more simply, I just say American know-how, because we are a nation of people who know how to innovate, who know how to use science to transform our economy, and we have done it over and over and over again.
I don't know. Maybe it came with, in getting in a boat and coming all the way across the ocean, you had to be an adventurer to begin with. If you had to settle the frontier, you had to be innovative in your own right. If you had to continue to expand our country, you had to have a great ability to take risks in order to calculate and move forward.
Yet, somehow, in the United States of America, we are blessed with ingenuity in our DNA. We as a nation are a nation that has figured out that if we continue to partner together with those great, creative minds, that the investment by both the public sector and the private sector and through our universities and now our community colleges and now research centers--that we can grow our economy, compete on an international level, and protect opportunity for future Americans.
So it has been many eras of innovation. When I think about it, I think about Thomas Edison and the light bulb, I obviously think about Henry Ford and automobiles, and in my part of the world, we think about Bill Boeing and aviation. Innovation is so much part of our DNA that I don't think we sometimes absorb the littler things that we might not know about.
People probably don't know about Nathan Stone Stubblefield, a Kentucky inventor who in 1902 demonstrated the first wireless transmission of communication using magnets. I know we have a big wireless industry today, but people probably don't know that, in 1902, a Kentucky inventor basically helped to turn the page on a new generation of technology. People probably don't know that a Louisiana professor, J. Lawrence Smith, in 1850, invented the microscope. Think about how much that led to the important discussions of science and healthcare for us as a nation. People probably don't know that, in Indiana, a State police officer invented the breathalyzer test, a gentleman named Robert Borkenstein, who basically just said, ``We don't know what is happening here,'' and he introduced and created the breathalyzer test.
That is what America is. America is the spirit of know-how and getting things done.
In fact, a report read:
Americans prioritize being a world leader in scientific achievements more than other global [communities].
That is from the Pew Research Center report by Cary Funk and several other authors last September.
The report goes on to read:
[S]even in ten Americans believe it is very important for the United States to be a leader in scientific achievements.
Clearly, what makes us different than other nations is that we are willing to put significant American tax dollars on the table to ensure that the national investment, the research in science, and the development of our ecosystem take place. That investment is matched with a good education system, capital formation, and, as I said, private sector investments in research and development. All of that has continued to make us the world leader in science and technology innovation. It also helps us create job growth here at home.
The question before us today is, How much research and development should our government be doing given how important th practical sciences and engineering are to the next generation of Americans?
We are here to discuss this proposal by Senators Schumer and Young, who, as I said, have been working on this concept for years because, no doubt, we have fallen off the pace--that is to say, the pace of scientific research investment at least as a percentage of the GDP.
Even though President Bush, in his second term, tried to signal the importance of this investment, he issued a report basically calling the American Competitiveness Initiative the leading world innovation agenda. That was in February of 2006.
In fact, at that time, President Bush said:
[T]he role of government is not to create wealth; the role of our government is to create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which minds can expand, in which technologies can reach new frontiers.
George Bush had it right. He knew that this competitiveness issue was starting to challenge us from a competitive perspective, and he knew that we needed to make a bigger investment.
Unfortunately, with the two attempts that we had--the America COMPETES Act in 2007 and the America COMPETES Act in 2010--it really was a goal by us to basically double the NSF budget within a 7-year window. While we started out in the right direction, we had a huge economic downturn, and these goals were not met. If we had kept our promises to these science agencies, we would have invested $80 billion more in innovation investments over the last 14 years than we have done today.
The challenge that we face now is that, after decades of not living up to what had been outlined for America COMPETES, we now know that it is an environment in which we are facing much more aggressive competition. We have to think about the lack of investment that we did not realize in the context of how long it takes to do technology breakthroughs.
Look at just one example, the internet as we know it today. Literally, in the 1960s, the ARPANET was first talked about. It took us to the 1990s to really, with the University of Illinois and Marc Andreessen, to affect what we would later know as hypertext links and a browser. Today, what it means to us is more than $2 trillion annually to our economy.
When you think about the investments we are asking our colleagues to make today, we have to consider that, in fact, Federal dollars for R&D is near its lowest point in 60 years as a percentage of the GDP. I can't say that we are going to discover the next internet, but I can say that, if we continue to underinvest in this, we will be shortchanging generations of innovation.
There is no doubt that key investments in research and development in other parts of the world are certainly getting attention. Since 2000, research and development in China has grown by 1,600 percent; in Taiwan and Korea by 400 percent; while, in the United States, just by 150 percent. That is in a 20-year window of looking at this issue.
Americans believe that competition is good, and we believe that competition helps to drive innovation. So you won't find me as one on the floor who is obsessed about other nations as much as giving a perspective here about what the world market opportunity represents. If we are not making the investments here in science and technology and innovation, not only are we missing opportunities in our own country, we are missing opportunities around the globe. The rest of the Nation, in an information age, is not going to sit by idly, so we have to think about how we move ahead on critical technology that helps us in all sectors of our economy--how it helps us with supply chains and, certainly, how it helps us with national security.
What we are talking about here, with this bill proposed by our colleague Leader Schumer and Senator Young, is more than a doubling of NSF's budget in 5 years; it is the start of trying to catch up. It is also a $17 billion investment in energy innovation--a key sector of our economy in which we need to make continued transformation. That represents a 28-percent increase in some of the projects from the Office of Science and things like ARPA-E that could see investment.
What we are also investing in, which our colleagues were very adamant about and very convincing, is a new tech directorate--that is to say that our research is very good with basic and very good with applied but that we actually have to get better with the user implementation of our science and spur more innovation in a more rapid fashion. So we are investing, between this new tech directorate and tech hubs, nearly $39 billion to help stimulate the faster translation of our advancements into real innovation. This is something the committee thought long and hard about, and we took testimony from experts who have worked on innovation issues for many years.
In this bill, we also increase the protection of intellectual property from our universities.
We are helping our universities do better tech transfer but also protect their intellectual property. In an information age, when so much is published online, if other nations, hungry for development, can read our research and act an effect on it because we haven't patented it, then we need to do a better job of patenting our innovations and helping our universities.
Our universities are unbelievable research institutions, and helping them spend more time on tech transfer is something that we have done in the Pacific Northwest. A new program ushered in there literally led to 20 startups from research that had been done but just hadn't been translated into new areas.
We also are trying to help get more regional diversity to our research and investment dollars. There are about 25 States in our Nation that previously qualified for a program that says they should get a share of research dollars. This legislation says all the money being spent here, 20 percent of it should go to that, what is called EPSCoR efforts, which is expanding research and development into those States.
And for the first time, we will have over at NSF an office of diversity--an office to focus on the lack of women and minorities in science and to make real progress on this issue.
People see the chart behind me, and, yes, it is no mistake, the picture we picked.
The point here is that we know from NSF's own research that we can't be passive about this. Literally, the University of Washington got an NSF grant that helped them study why we are not making more progress with women and minorities in science and innovation, and they came back with: It can't be passive. You can't just put dollars on the table for STEM. You can't just put a few programs in place. It has to be an active approach to changing many aspects to the way we educate in science.
I am very proud of the University of Washington on this point because they made changes, and now of those who are teaching in what are considered STEM sciences at the University of Washington, 70 percent of them are women or people of color. So we have changed what the face of teaching science looks like at the University of Washington, and now we have to change some of the criteria and curriculum so that we can continue to attract more people. This bill is a very good step in that direction.
So what are we trying to achieve? We are trying to achieve what NSF Director Panchanathan is saying. He is saying that we need, in this next decade and in decades to come, innovation everywhere, tied to opportunity everywhere, tied to our universities. That is what we are trying to do in advancing this legislation.
We processed over 100 amendments in committee and a broad range of input from our colleagues. We will, I am sure, here in regular order process many more, but, hopefully, these amendments and more of the substance of this underlying bill we will go into in detail. We have to remember what our goals are with this investment--to stay competitive, to create future jobs, to help our economy by unleashing innovation, to protect our national security, and do what Americans know how to do best--that is, use that ingenuity to help create a better future.
I will see if my colleagues want to speak, but we will be coming back to expand on many other layers of this legislation. We will be back to talk about semiconductors. We will be back to talk about the new tech directorate. We will be back to talk about NASA funding. We will be back.
And that reminds me. If anybody at home is saying, ``Well, you know, OK, that was interesting; I don't really know about this; what is American innovation?'' just go and Google two things. You can either look at SpaceX rocket return, which they did in 2015, or Blue Origin. In both of those--the New Shepherd and the Falcon, two different approaches--there are literally engineers who said: If we are going to go to space, if we are going to go to the Moon, if we are going back to the Moon and go to Mars, we need to figure out how to have returnable rockets.
Just go Google those two clips, and you will see alive and well the spirit of American ingenuity when those engineers see that rocket returning from outer space and reland because they have pulled off an incredible achievement. You will see jubilant joy and excitement over that accomplishment.
I guarantee you, we will not see everything that this bill will unleash, but I guarantee you it will unleash things that will deliver that kind of excitement for Americans in the future, and we will have to be very thankful that this Congress set the record straight on the level of investment we need to achieve to keep us competitive.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, the 21st century will be shaped by the outcome of the strategic competition between the United States and China. Like our Nation's previous contest with the Soviet Union, the outcome of this great contest will help determine the world that our children and our grandchildren live in.
There are only two real possibilities: Either the United States will remain the preeminent global superpower or we will be replaced by China. This truth is recognized on both sides of the aisle in this body. The contest between our two countries will involve every aspect of national life--including military might, diplomatic skill, economic strength, and the deepest values that shape our societies.
The scope and complexity of this challenge calls for bold action, and that is what the Endless Frontier Act is about. This week the Senate has an opportunity to come together on a bipartisan basis and move forward on legislation, now known as the United States Innovation and Competition Act. This will make our Nation more economically competitive, improve protections for U.S. intellectual property and research, and keep us a step ahead of China in this area of high-stakes competition.
This bill does so by increasing research at the National Science Foundation and dramatically increasing R&D at a new National Science Foundation directorate. Other Agencies in the Federal Government will also see dramatic increases in the important research that they perform.
The Endless Frontier Act, as reported by the Commerce Committee, is a major part of this comprehensive legislative effort. Other committees have also been important partners in this legislation. In particular, I congratulate Chairman Menendez and Ranking Member Risch of the Foreign Relations Committee for producing the Strategic Competition Act, which was reported out of their committee on a 21-to-1 vote.
I also commend Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Peters and Ranking Member Portman; Banking Committee Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Toomey; Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr; and Judiciary Chair Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley for their importan contributions to the substitute product.
I will focus my remarks on the Commerce Committee's contributions to the Endless Frontier Act. Last week, the Commerce Committee held a markup to consider this legislation. We considered hundreds of amendments and adopted over 100 of them into the reported bill, including over 20 bipartisan, separately introduced bills. The markup at times was challenging, but in the end the bill passed the committee on a bipartisan 24-to-4 vote.
The Endless Frontier Act will enhance U.S. science and technology leadership through key investments in R&D, regional economic development, and manufacturing.
The bill will accomplish these goals in the following ways: First, it will preserve the core basic research mission of the National Science Foundation. The NSF is the world's gold standard for funding basic research, a sector that fuels new waves of innovation across our society. Basic research answers the fundamental questions of scientific inquiry needed to develop major innovations. The internet, GPS, cell phones, and many other breakthrough technologies have their origins in National Science Foundation-funded research. The Endless Frontier Act will authorize funding increases in NSF's core science portfolio to support the most promising research proposals. That is the first thing.
Secondly, this bill will establish a new Directorate of Technology and Innovation at the NSF to drive faster innovation in key technology focus areas, such as artificial intelligence, or AI, and robotics. We included strong coordination measures to ensure that programs at the new Technology Directorate do not duplicate R&D programs of other Federal Agencies, such as the Department of Energy. These provisions are designed to ensure the wise expenditure of taxpayer dollars by preventing bureaucratic turf wars, which can slow down innovation.
Third, this legislation will protect intellectual property and research from foreign governments--most notably, China. The Endless Frontier Act will establish a research security office at the NSF and create a clearinghouse to share information about security risks. It also puts forward policies to protect controlled information, including a plan for background checks on researchers.
In addition, it will take critical steps to guard against Chinese intellectual property theft by prohibiting NSF funds from going to researchers who are part of a Chinese talent program or an institution with formal ties to a Confucius Institute. This is a new and important step.
Fourth, this bill will reduce the geographic concentration of R&D in a handful of States and universities. Put simply, this bill will be a game changer for the R&D geographic diversity that many of us have sought for years, if not decades. America can maintain our leadership over China only with a sustained effort that is national in scope. We should tap into the wide-ranging talents, expertise, and capabilities of Americans across this land, including Nevada and Mississippi.
The Endless Frontier Act will help address these long-standing disparities by increasing funding for the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, which we have all come to know as EPSCoR. Participation in EPSCoR helps institutions in many States and Territories improve their research capacities and, therefore, compete more effectively for Federal R&D funding. The legislation also invests in minority serving institutions and builds up research capacity in emerging institutions, which have traditionally received a relatively small share of Federal research dollars.
No. 5, this bill will boost regional economic development through the Regional Technology Hub Program.
No. 6, it will support manufacturing programs, in part, by quadrupling the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program, which already exists.
No. 7, it will help America win the ``New Space Race'' against China by including the NASA Authorization Act, which the Senate passed unanimously last year. The NASA bill allows Congress to set priorities and guardrails for the space Agency's exploration and research programs.
No. 8, this bill will authorize a number of telecommunication programs to improve our telecom workforce and help get all Americans connected to high-speed and reliable broadband.
This bill also includes several bills that I have championed, including the Rural STEM Education Act, the Advanced Technological Manufacturing Act, the Improving Minority Participation and Careers in Telecommunications Act, and the Telecommunications Supply Chain Diversity Promotion Act--significant legislation and a mouthful, too.
Overall, this is a strong bill, but it can be made better. As I mentioned at the Commerce Committee's markup last week, although the bill reported out of the committee makes important changes to the underlying bill, I regret the rushed process that was followed.
The underlying bill was introduced on April 20, just under a month ago. Only yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Schumer laid down a 1,400-
page substitute that not only includes the Endless Frontier Act, but major legislation from the Foreign Relations, Homeland Security, Banking, HELP, and Judiciary Committees. Now known as the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act--USICA, I suppose--this legislation will make significant changes to our innovation ecosystem and the missions of our Federal Agencies.
A bill of this magnitude would normally take a year to write and involve soliciting input from Members and stakeholders across our country to craft a consensus package. Clearly, the Senate should consider this bill with an open amendment process.
Prematurely shutting down debate on amendments without this open process would send a false signal to China and the American people that we are divided in an area where, actually, we are united and together.
And then, when all is said and done, the effort will have to be paid for and will be subject to appropriations.
I hope the majority's determination to rush this legislation through the Senate is not designed to use a partisan reconciliation bill to appropriate funding for these important initiatives. Science has always been debated in a bipartisan way in this body. Leaving one party on the sidelines in the appropriation process, which I hope will not happen, would have a detrimental consequences for the long-term stability of this legislation.
So on the whole, I am positive and optimistic about this bill and about the process that will get us to the end of both parties' desire.
I thank my colleague, Senator Cantwell, for her work as chair of the Commerce Committee to get this bill on the floor today, and I look forward to working with her to improve the bill in the next step in the process--an open amendment process
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