Michelle Wu: “I rise in opposition to the VA/HUD Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2001. The bill cuts the President's proposed $675…”

“I rise in opposition to the VA/HUD Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2001. The bill cuts the President's proposed $675 million increase in the NSF budget by $508 million. This will jeopardize the Nation's investment in the future. The bill undermines priority investments in advanced technologies, including information technology, nanotechnology and geosciences. Earlier this year, the House passed a bi-partisan bill, H.R. 2086, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act, which calls for major increases in Information Technology research and development, with a large portion of the increase designated to the NSF. This bill will significantly reduce funding for the Information Technology R&D program. Approximately 81 percent ($2,149.9 million) of NSF's FY 1999 funding in research and development budget was awarded to U.S. colleges and universities. Many of the higher education institutions in my District such as Portland State University, Oregon Graduate Institute, and Oregon Health Sciences University, rely on these grants for cutting edge research. For instance, these three institutions have joined with the University of Washington in receiving NSF funding to create a high-speed metropolitan network to connect the universities for collaborative medical science, engineering and technology research. I represent the Silicon Forest.”