John Ensign: “I join Senators Alexander, Bingaman, and others in talking about a topic that I personally have spent a great deal of…”

“I join Senators Alexander, Bingaman, and others in talking about a topic that I personally have spent a great deal of time on over the past two years: how to improve the ability of the United States to compete in an increasingly global marketplace. We have held many hearings in the Commerce Committee and in the Commerce Subcommittee that I chair on technology, innovation, and competitiveness issues. A major focus of these hearings has been to consider how we keep America on the cutting edge. We have learned some startling statistics. First of all, we find out that America will graduate somewhere around 60,000 to 70,000 engineers this year. China and India together will graduate a much larger number of engineers in that same time period. In the 21st century, we need to encourage more people to go into the technology fields, into science, math, and engineering. One interesting fact that came out is that if our kids become disinterested in science and math in elementary school, the chances of them ever becoming interested in these fields later on in life are virtually nil.”