Bioeconomy Research and Development Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Madam Speaker, my amendment would help strengthen cybersecurity, improve American competitiveness, and contribute to a more diverse workplace by creating the David Satcher Cybersecurity Education Grant Program which gives the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, also known as NIST, the authority to make grants to historically Black colleges and universities and also minority-serving institutions and schools that serve large numbers of Pell Grant receiving students. It would help these students promote cybersecurity education and research.

Madam Speaker, we must include more women and minorities so we are maximizing all the tech talent our country has to offer. We are engaged in a cyber war, and we need all hands on deck. HBCUs are doing some of the most sophisticated and technologically advanced work in our Nation, and we should tap into and fully support those institutions to help us win this cyber war. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment when it comes up.

I would also recognize the fact that, as I have listened to the debate today on this very important topic, from my friends on the other side of the aisle I have heard a lot of Asian bashing. It is quite dangerous for us to go down that path, stoking the passions of people against other people. This is not about other people. This is about what America can do to put itself in a position to protect its supply chains and to make things in America and restore the greatness that this country has.

Madam Speaker, I would urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to refrain from the constant bashing of Asian people because it translates into real time. I mean, it has a real detrimental effect to our brothers and sisters who may not look like some but they are people, too. They are Americans as well. So we should not demonize an entire people just to score cheap political points.

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