Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the COMPETES Reauthorization Act, which is an attempt to disinvest, in my view, in research, innovation, and education at a time when we ought to be investing in those areas even more greatly. This bill places our competitiveness at a serious risk over the long term. The public must be awfully confused, I understand, by both sides claiming that they are enhancing research. Many interest groups, however, disagree with our Republican friends. I had hoped that this year's COMPETES legislation would have been written so that we could continue the tradition of the strong bipartisan support that it received in 2007 and 2010. Overwhelmingly, Republicans voted for these bills initially and the reauthorization. Unfortunately, the severe cuts and partisan policy changes it makes preclude that from happening. The Republicans who wrote this legislation have decided that they know better than America's scientists and innovators. They arbitrarily pick and choose research programs they like at the expense of those they ideologically oppose-- in other words, not peer review but political review. And they cut key areas of research far below the levels appropriated for fiscal year 2015, including the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program and R&D for renewable energy technologies. How ironic that we have an R&D bill on the floor and they are cutting R&D technology here.…”