Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. ADERHOLT. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment of my good friend from Georgia because it would negatively impact a range of NSF activities. The amendment would hamstring NSF's main operational account that funds activities like financial management, grant oversight, and procurement.
I know the gentleman cares very strongly about protecting the taxpayers' interests, and I don't believe that making it more difficult for NSF to monitor and to oversee its funds helps those interests in any way.
The memo would eliminate the increase that the bill provides for NSF's critical STEM education programs. These funds are urgently needed to address widespread and serious challenges that we have currently in our U.S. economy.
Compared to our major international competitors, our K-12 students do not perform well in STEM-related subjects, and our universities produce a smaller percentage of STEM-related graduates.
In addition, our STEM workforce is not big enough to meet the current or projected demand for skilled employees by high-tech companies. NSF's STEM education programs will play a major role in solving these programs by improving the quality of STEM instructors, by attracting more students to STEM fields, and by enabling talented students to pursue STEM degrees.
These investments are important to the economy and to the overall importance of the Nation as a whole. For this reason, I would urge my fellow Members to reject this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ADERHOLT. Madam Chairman, I do rise in opposition to the amendment of my colleague from Georgia.
The recommendation in this amendment provides $350 million for Legal Services, which is a reduction to 2008 level of almost $70 million. It is $80 million below the 2010 request.
I understand there are some concerns with Legal Services Corporation-funded programs, but the bill contains several important restrictions on political activity by the LSC grantees. That would include lobbying, abortion litigation, and class action lawsuits. These restrictions cover both the Legal Services funds as well as private funds.
The administration proposed to eliminate several of these restrictions, but the House bill rejects this proposal.
We have included language in the committee report directing Legal Services to vigorously enforce the restrictions on political activity, which we think is very important.
Throughout my time in Congress, I have supported Legal Services for Americans who would not otherwise have adequate access to civil legal assistance. We are facing an extremely challenging budgetary environment--and I realize that--but the recommendation is a fair compromise between the need for austerity and also the balance to provide civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.
For that reason, Madam Chair, I would urge a ``no'' vote.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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