Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, as part of the compromise before us, we have agreed to amend the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship Program to encourage the Secretary of Commerce to strive to ensure equal access for minority and economically disadvantaged students. There was broad agreement that this was a worthy refinement to this outstanding program. The amendment offered by our colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), would simply amend this provision to require the Secretary to provide an initial report to describe the level of minority and disadvantaged student participation within the Knauss Fellowship Program and also require subsequent reports every 2 years thereafter on progress in providing opportunities for under-represented groups to participate. I agree with the intent of this amendment, and I congratulate our colleague for this excellent amendment. Certainly we want to encourage NOAA to reach out to under-represented groups to offer them the opportunity to compete for Knauss fellowships like every other graduate student. Additionally, NOAA has implemented a commendable program of outreach to historically black and minority institutions of higher education, higher learning over the past few years. I would add that all of the institutions I mentioned in the Western Pacific are minority institutions. This amendment would appear consistent with that overall initiative as well.”