Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 1162, the Science Prize Competitions Act, promotes increased utilization of prize competitions within the Federal Government. I want to thank the ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee, Mr. Beyer, for introducing this legislation. I also thank the bipartisan cosponsors, which include the vice chair of the Oversight Subcommittee, Mr. Bill Johnson, as well as the full committee ranking member, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson. Prize competitions help spur innovation. They give innovators incentives to produce groundbreaking, outside-the-box ideas. Used effectively, prize competitions can be a tool to generate revolutionary results that wouldn't happen otherwise. For example, after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the X Prize Foundation sponsored a competition to elicit new oil removal technologies that needed to be better than state of the art. With the incentive of a million-dollar prize for first place, the winning team designed technology capable of extracting 89 percent of the oil from the water. Thanks to the incentives provided by the competition, the winner, in a few months, blew the competition and the then best available oil skimmers out of the water. Another example of a novel idea for a prize involves the Head Health Challenge.…”