Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this bipartisan amendment, which supports the Pentagon's FY19 budget request for research and development conducted by the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental, also known as DIUx. I am grateful to my colleagues, Representatives Gallagher of Wisconsin and Russell of Oklahoma, and to my colleague from Massachusetts, Representative Tsongas, for working with me on this amendment. American technological innovation is widely renowned as the world's best. Our private-sector innovators are constantly pushing the envelope of the possible, inventing new technologies that revolutionize how people live. However, when it comes to national security, we have a serious problem. Thousands of our startups have a strong desire to contribute to national security, but over the past two decades, as our cutting-edge innovators have changed the world, government procurement processes have failed to change with them. As a result, in critical areas such as cybersecurity, our top private-sector innovators have no economically viable avenue to pursue government business. The Department of Defense, therefore, has no access to them. DIUx is the only funding stream in this entire bill that solves this problem. Military services and commanders in the field identify pressing problems that they need solved and bring them to DIUx. DIUx then pairs them with top commanders and top innovators to provide a pilot contract to solve their problems.…”