Lynn C. Woolsey: “I have two responses to the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Smith) objections to my amendment. First, in talking about…”

“I have two responses to the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Smith) objections to my amendment. First, in talking about the changes that differed from what my amendment was in committee and to what we have brought to the floor, my changes were based on the committee's objections. So I came here prepared to improve upon what we had talked about earlier. In the amendment in committee, we had the funding come from a small account in the plant genome program, and now my amendment would allow the NSF director to decide where within an $11 billion research account my $35 million program could be funded. That is not a lot of money within a large account, and so I wanted to make sure my colleague knew why that had changed. It is $15 million in the first year of the bill, $20 million in the second year of the bill, and nothing specified in the third year because we have required a report from the NSF with their recommended levels for future years.”