Douglas Alexander: “we will have plenty of time to debate this next week, so I will reserve most of my comments until then, but let me…”

“we will have plenty of time to debate this next week, so I will reserve most of my comments until then, but let me reiterate some of the major provisions that are here. As Senator Bingaman said, this is only an authorization bill. It is permission to establish programs, but it is backed up by an amendment to the Budget Act which creates room in the appropriations bill to pay for these programs. Here is what we intend to do: Double funding for the National Science Foundation; set the Department of Energy's Office of Science on track to double its funding; strengthen the skills of thousands of math and science teachers by establishing training and education programs at summer institutes hosted by the national laboratories; and by increasing support for teacher institutes for programs at the National Science Foundation. These are the kinds of programs that Senator Reid, the majority leader, was talking about. Expand the teacher scholarship programs at NSF; help establish academies for math and science in the various States. North Carolina has had one for a long time, and 20 years ago, when I was Governor, I went to see if Tennessee could create one. We decided we didn't have the money to do it, so we created a summer Governor's school, which turned out to be a good idea, where outstanding students from math and science could go to the University of Tennessee for 4 weeks in the summer.”