Vernon Ehlers: “I just wish to respond to my good friend and colleague from Michigan (Mr. Smith) in regard to his comments, because I…”

“I just wish to respond to my good friend and colleague from Michigan (Mr. Smith) in regard to his comments, because I also am a very strong supporter of the National Science Foundation and the way they handle their research efforts. But I want to point out that a century and a half ago, this country established one of the landmarks in research efforts in this country, and that is the land grant university system. That system has worked very well precisely because it not only did the research but also through that system we developed a cooperative extension service that literally gets the results from the laboratory to the farmer's fields within 1 year. It is the best technology transfer program we have in the United States. The reason that I did not support transferring Sea Grant to NSF is simply because they also have an extension service. The Sea Grant Program is modeled not after programs in NSF, but rather it is modeled after the land grant system. For that reason it is better to remain where it is and continue to operate as it is.”