Establishing Interagency Aerospace Revitalization Task Force to Develop a National Strategy for Aerospace Workforce Recruitment, Training...

ESTABLISHING INTERAGENCY AEROSPACE REVITALIZATION TASK FORCE TO DEVELOP A NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR AEROSPACE WORKFORCE RECRUITMENT, TRAINING, AND CULTIVATION -- (House of Representatives - October 25, 2005)

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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to add my voice of support for this very important legislation, The Aerospace Revitalization Act, which I have cosponsored. I want to offer a tribute to Congressman VERNON EHLERS, a colleague from the Science Committee and Congresswoman ELLEN TAUSCHER, a colleague from my home state of California, for their insight in sponsoring this legislation. I also want to thank Chairman JOHN BOEHNER and Ranking Democrat GEORGE MILLER for their insight in moving this bill out of their Committee.

This legislation evolved from recommendations of the 2002 bipartisan Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry report, which was chaired by the Honorable Robert Walker, a former member of this body and a former chairman of the Science Committee. In this report, a recommendation proposed that the federal government needed to respond to what the Report termed, ``the nation's apathy toward developing a scientifically and technologically trained workforce.''

This bill does just that. H.R. 758 establishes a taskforce to be coordinated by the Secretary of the Department of Labor and spanning eight other federal agencies. This taskforce includes NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Defense, Energy, Education, Commerce, Transportation, and Homeland Security. This taskforce will examine the competitive challenges to the aerospace industry's three core business units--civil aviation, military contracting, and space transportation. It will then blend the resources of the federal government to identify new aerospace workforce training and recruitment opportunities through scholarship, grant and loan programs. The taskforce will also set up alliances with the private sector and state governments to tie business, state governments, and the federal government together with the common goal of providing the technical skills needed to keep America competitive.

As the Chairman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, I sponsored the NASA Authorization, which passed this House in July. Because of our Committee's like concerns about our nation's competitiveness globally, in my bill, we direct the Administrator of NASA to develop a Human Capital strategy to address our concerns about not only the size of the workforce, but the technical skill mix of this workforce. We all recognize the necessity to keep the United States competitively at the forefront. Our largest export is from the high tech aerospace industry. Our global standing is at risk if we do not keep our aerospace workforce second to none!

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