Eddie Bernice Johnson

We have also increased our efforts at the Federal level, in both Congress and our agencies, to improve the effectiveness of our STEM education investments.

If Congress actually carries through with such shortsighted cuts, it will make all of the earnest protestations of support for exploration that we may hear today sound very empty indeed.

I have long been a supporter of human space exploration. It pushes technological innovation, advances our understanding of the universe, challenges our best and brightest, and inspires millions of our young people.

This is unfair to the hard-working men and women of NASA and its contracted team and it is unduly increasing risk and winds up costing us more down the road.

It is not an exaggeration to say that NASA and its programs provide one of the most positive images of America abroad that we could hope for.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our Nation, and indeed, the entire world.

The reality of climate change is increasingly impossible to deny.

A slow motion human tragedy could be unfolding before our eyes, and it is unconscionable for us to sit and watch it progress when we know how to avoid it.

Climate change affects our economy.

This is a problem that cannot be dismissed. Putting our heads in the sand and hoping for the best is a recipe for disaster.

This is a failure of leadership of the highest order.

We have the talent and ability to take on this important leadership role.

A commitment to deficit reduction should not negate the need to invest in our future.

We must also maintain a strong base of American manufacturing.

I hope we act before it is too late to direct our Nation's great brainpower to developing solutions to reduce the warming and mitigate the impacts in our most vulnerable communities.

I firmly believe that the key to maintaining and rebuilding our manufacturing capacity is through strategic investments in advanced manufacturing R&D and workforce development.

Even in these fiscally challenging times, we must set priorities, and there are few more important investments we can make than in our Nation's brain power.

I am pleased that the President remains committed to prioritizing investments in research and development and STEM education in his request.

Scientists are telling us that the climate is changing, and I don't understand why some of us keep fighting them.

This is a good budget for research, innovation, and education.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul will not give us sustainable and effective NASA programs.

My concern is that we have reached a point where our government has to hope that nongovernmental organizations will somehow do what the government should be doing but it apparently is unwilling to pay for it.

Good morning. I would like to welcome each of our witnesses to today's hearing.

I could not disagree more. They should have special interest and self-interest, and I hope they do...

Without dismissing the value of many other investments we make... there is probably no single investment we make...