Political Quotes

“My amendment as offered by my colleagues, Representative Bass and Representative Fudge, would simply restore ARPA-E funding to the fiscal year 2011 level of $179.6 million. ARPA-E was created in 2009 to bring the kind of innovative thinking that is well known at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to the energy sector. That includes a focus on high-risk, high- reward R&D and a quick-moving culture made up of experts who stay for just a few years to ensure that new ideas are continually being brought forward. Unlike some government agencies, its philosophy, much like a tech start-up, is to hire the best technical staff and then hire the managers and leadership that can get the best out of them. This reinvention of the way that government does business is something that we should be encouraging. A leaner approach adopted from the private sector, with a more agile leadership and the mandate to cut underperforming research avenues, is exactly what the Department of Energy needs. The American Energy Innovation Council, made up of CEOs and chairmen of some of America's biggest companies, including Bill Gates, Norm Augustine and Jeff Immelt, have proposed spending $1 billion a year on ARPA-E, seeing it as a vital part of our energy future. This bill provides just $100 million, so they endorsed a version of this amendment in the Appropriations Committee.…”