Stop Trump's Chaos--Stand Up for Science
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOUSHEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleagues for organizing this Special Order hour.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in solidarity with my colleagues to stand up and speak out against the proposed budget and demonization of science and the science community.
America is where we are today because of what we create. Whether it is manufacturing, innovation, scientific and medical research, or technology transfer, all these fields require science and the millions of researchers and innovators who push American STEM in our Nation's workforce to the forefront.
These efforts are critical to my district, which includes the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, Durham and Wake Technical Community Colleges, and so many new up-and-coming industry leaders in STEM.
However, in total, the Trump administration has canceled nearly $20 million in NSF research grants to North Carolina as a whole.
Take, for instance, an NSF-funded grant that was recently canceled in my district, North Carolina's Fourth, that was aimed at addressing the lack of diversity in the engineering doctoral workforce and promoting the retention of students from underrepresented groups.
Recent doctoral engineering attrition rates revealed a disproportionately high loss of students from groups historically underrepresented in STEM, like women, minorities, and people from rural areas.
Researchers in my district were working to help us address this critical gap, funded by NSF, now canceled under the guise of being so- called woke.
Still, the majority continues to conflate the need to bolster manufacturing with the destruction of our scientific institutions.
We need to make things here at home. Does America really win if China does all the innovation?
I like the idea of an America that supports domestic manufacturing and is a leader in innovation, not an America that does China's manufacturing work.
Right now, because of the senseless cuts to NSF, NIH, and scientific institutions across the board, we are, instead, taking steps toward losing a generation of innovators and helping China lead global STEM innovation, not us.
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