Lamar Smith: “For nearly 70 years, the National Science Foundation has served as the basis of taxpayer-funded basic research.”

First of all, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) for those nice comments. And she is right, this was a very bipartisan effort and a very bipartisan bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the…

I have further speakers, but I will yield to the ranking member if she has any speakers. I reserve the balance of my time.

With the Speaker's allowance and permission, we have another speaker on his way to the House floor who we expect to be here in another 30 seconds, so if I could talk slowly and go on for another 30 seconds, I think the gentleman from Texas…

It is truly staggering to behold how this space telescope's cost and schedule projections went from costing the same as a space shuttle mission--around half-a-billion dollars with an original launch date in 2007--to now becoming an…