America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman, for an extraordinary piece of work, and Ranking Member Hall and the other members of the committee. I came to this committee halfway through the year, and I was absolutely amazed and delighted to see the intensity of discussions--35 separate hearings.

And my colleague from Georgia who thinks we ought to put this off, I cannot imagine leaving a job half done--not half done, but 99 percent done, and then let it go after all the work that's been put together here.

This is a good bill. I don't ever like what the other House does to my legislation, and I'm sure all of us feel the same way. But what I'd like to point out here in this bill is that there are basically five things that this Nation needs to do if we're going to succeed economically: best education, best research, make the things that come from that research, have the infrastructure, and then be international.

This is about three of those things, three very important things. The education, the STEM education is in this legislation. Without it, we will never be able to compete. And we ought not wait until next year to get that going.

Secondly, with regard to the research, it is fundamental. I come from California, the great Silicon Valley and all of those new technologies come from the research at the universities in the surrounding area. This legislation promotes that research agenda across the Nation, not just in California, but at every other research institution throughout the United States.

And finally, there is a major piece of this legislation that talks about making it in America. If we are going to have a strong middle class, a strong economy, we must once again make it in America. This legislation provides some fundamental elements necessary for us to do that. For example, the loan guarantee that was degraded just a few moments ago is exceedingly important because that's the valley of death. How does an entrepreneur, how does a new business get through the valley of death? That's what this is about.

This legislation also provides a way in which we can coordinate our manufacturing expertise. With that, we ought to pass this bill and acknowledge the enormous amount of work that was done over the last Congress.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I spoke on the House floor in strong support of the COMPETES Reauthorization. I wish to reinforce these comments. America is in a Global Race to innovate. COMPETES propels us forward, helping us win this race through smart investments. Improvements in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education will result in an educated workforce, who will develop the technology of the future. A strengthening of our research capacity is inherently valuable and will pay huge dividends when this knowledge is leveraged towards technological development. COMPETES helps turn these lab bench discoveries into products that we can buy and sell on the market. By strengthening American manufacturing, COMPETES helps us to make it in America again. Improvements in R&D will grow America's economy and increase our ability to export our products around the world.

I express strong support for the COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, H.R. 5116.

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