morning the committee will come to order we like to get things started here on time governor engler is stuck in traffic we've all had that situation and he will be joining us shortly also so that you will kno also has to leave it eleven thirty and we will try to get everyone out here by eleven thirty so good morning and i'm sure we'll have some more that will be coming in earlier welcome everyone i before this coming year on it it says draft the reason that it says draft is that you know we welcome your continuing thoughts on that much of it reflects what we have been discussing over the last year and this morning we're going to kick off one of the most important  together for us and we welcome that among other initiatives we also expect to take a closer look at advancing several energy technologies including those associated with nucular energy carbon capture and sequence ration marine and hydro kinetic energy as well as energy efficiencies and conservation technologies these technologies not only have the potential to help curb climate change they also post are poised to create new industries and new jobs to go along with them in this trailer's we're going to take another crack at that organic no act and work on that quite a bit and we will continue work there and finally we need to finish the work that this committee has started last year the committee passed a total of thirty seven bills and resolutions out of the house with strong bipartisan support we are currently working with the senate to speed up progress on twenty one bills that are still waiting for action in that chamber so this year poses a tall order for this committee however i am optimistic that th bar bipartisan approach we'll be able to produce good legislation for the american people and i look forward to continuing good counsel with my friend ralph hall and the republican members of this committee now thanks to our panelists for being here  for their patience as we took care of some quick housekeeping and now we move on to the reason that we're here this morning that the american competes act as you know in two thousand and five i along with former chairman sherry boehner sen that the national academy conduct a study to assess the state of the nation's competitiveness the science and technology infrastructure in the united states and how it would affect future u s prosperity result was rising above the gathering storm this report included a comprehensive set of recommendations to create jobs and father us competitive in an increasingly global marketplace the committee use these recommendations to create the american competes act which was signed into law and august two thousand and seven the bill also established an advanced research projects agency for energy better known as r p this federal agency has already awarded its first round of four to five million dollars grants to raise searchers who are conducting high risk reward research in the energy fill the funding process amazed everyone and bob they received a shocking three thousand seven hundred an issue a concept paper ask three hundred thirty four of those four to submit full proposals and eventually selected thirty seven proposals for four first round funding the speed with which this agency was organized and processed these applications seemed unprecedented in the federal government this  is a direct result of the countless hours spent on arpa a direct bad operate director by a room and has dedicated staff working to achieve the agency's mission last month r p announced that it is accepting applications for a second round of funding which will soon go out but federal funding can only go so far many the finalists have projects that are certainly just as deserving for grant funding as the ward winners that's why i suggested to secretary chu that he set up create a failure in which these finalists could display their ideas and meet with potential investors they agreed and the first  innovation summit will be held march the first two third at the gaylord convention center in nearby national harbor they were going to be looking for additional ways to try to bring in private sector dollars for these good proposals as well as finding ways to try to get them to market as quickly as and this morning however we are here to discuss the need to reauthorize the american competes act which expires at the end of the current fiscal year as we learn from the gathering storm in order to create a a sustained well educated workforce for innovative economy we need to establish sustained funding streams for these programs are witnesses this morning will help us to better understand how critical this committee commitment is to our prosperity to our economic growth i look forward to hearing from them about how compete has affected or will affect us innovation in the workforce and how these programs will help them sustain a skilled workforce in the future now i'd like to yield to my friend from texas mr hall mr chairman thank you panel thank you very to all of you for your very valuable time you know it's been nearly three years since we sit in this room with norm augustine and officially kicked off to become the american compete as everyone here is a war america competes with a culmination of recommendation from the oft quoted gathering storm report former president bush's american competitiveness initiative and efforts begun by this committee under republican leadership and continued very well by this chairman one of the great chairman in the history of this committee we all worked in a bipartisan fashion to get to where we are today with this measure and i'm very proud of our accomplishments my message hadn't changed much since then if america's going to remain on top of the evolving world economy we have to be dedicated to encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship while simultaneously cultivating a scientifically and technological astute future workforce message hadn't changed unfortunately our economy has america competes was a step in the right direction to accomplish what was needed to be done in h r twenty two seventy two we set out to double funding for the national science foundation the national institutes of standards and technology and the daily's office of science over a ten year period by the time we got through the conference this timetable was accelerated to seven years plus these agencies received enormous amounts of stimulus funding results of which have yet to be garden proceed cautiously through this reauthorization process as i believe it's prudent for us to ensure that we're reaping the benefits of the numerous and that you dave already set forth in america competes before creating others for the more and i hope our witnesses  to this do they compete is just one aspect of improving america's competitiveness president bush once said the role of government is not to create wealth the role of government is to create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish in which minds can expand  which technologies can reach new frontiers and understand it that is in the competitiveness initiative of the american competitive issue today that statement encouraging private sector innovation through tax credits a positive regulatory environment and other such programs will show improve the american economy make us more competitive globally and bring new products and jobs to the american people i look forward to working closely again with you mr chairman and this reauthorization and he have to say with that i yield back my time thank you mr hall and you can be well assured that we are going to move with care as we reauthorized mr cast of me and others have pointed out in their written testimony  there does need to be reviews evaluation and accountability for peace and within the original bill there were a number of reports that were required to be submitted to us concerning accountability the first one has come in will be the others will be coming in as we go through this authorization also i concur with you it is a very distinguished panel we have been fortunate to have bill gates the speaker many nobel laureates speak before us but no it's my pleasure to first introduce mr john kasten alley he is the president of the business roundtable an association of chief executive officers of leading u s corporations these corporations represent a combined workforce of nearly twelve million employees donohue is the president and c e o of the u s chamber of commerce since assuming the role in one nine hundred ninety seven mr donohue has helped the chamber grow to represent more than three million businesses nearly three thousand state and local chambers eight hundred thirty associations and over ninety american chambers of commerce abroad governor john engler is president and c e o of the national association of manufacturers the largest manufacturing industry trade group in america representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector in all fifty states and miss deborah went smith is president and c e o of the council of competitive association where c e o s labor leaders and university presidents work together to ensure that u s remain competitive in a global ranking member hall members of the committee chairman said the business roundtable is an association of chief executive officers in addition to the twelve million employees that they represent they also represent nearly six trillion dollars in annual revenue and most relevant for this committee they spend more than one hundred eleven billion dollars annually in research and development that's nearly half of all of the total research and development private research and development in the united states i welcome the opportunity to appear before you today to address reauthorizing the american competes act which this roundtable views as fundamental a fundamental prerequisite to restoring stable long term economic growth and job creation america are committed to accelerate ing american innovation and boosting worldwide competitiveness of the united states they understand that investments in science research math and science education help create the platform for  sustain long term growth the formula is simple investments in research and education provide the tools for excel aerated technological innovation which drives productivity growth innovation leads to new products and process es and even whole new industries generating high wage employment and a higher standard of living for all americans the business roundtable commitment to fostering u s innovation and competitiveness is not new in two thousand five the roundtable together with other national business associations including my friends on this panel created tapping america's potential campaign or tab with a goal of significantly increasing the number of american science technology engineering and mathematics graduates with bachelor degrees we believe that expanding the talent pool is a critical element perhaps the critical element of the innovation agenda that america must pursue to remain competitive in the twenty first century when congress passed the america competes act in two thousand and seven the united states faced major competition from powerful new economic rivals some were minor competitors only a decade ago today those rivals  emerged from the economic downturn in an even stronger position and while the u s struggles with high unemployment and crippling budget deficits china is pouring billions into research in education reauthorizing the act of providing sustained support for its key provisions will help attract more young americans into technical fields and expand american workers employment horizons in earning potential the america competes act authorized significant increases in research investments that directly enhanced america's ability to innovate and create new jobs competes also authorized scholarship and training programs to recruit high performing k through twelve math and science teachers to enhance the skills of existing teachers the lack of qualified math and science teachers in american public schools is a major impediment to improve u s education achievement in math and science in many respects the state of america's public education system is one of our nation's greatest weaknesses nearly every job created in the u s over the next ten years will require more math and science fluency than the average job today the question is will america produce the skilled workers to fill these positions last month business roundtable released the final recommendation from the spring board project which is an independent commission we convene to ensure that american workers thrive after the economy rebounds the commission found the gap between worker skills and the needs of employers is widening exactly the opposite of what we would hope to see if every american is to gain fulfilling employment strengthening stem education at all levels needs focused attention now and in the future one of our greatest challenges going forward is securing stable funding funding commitments from congress for the american competes act it is our job to persuade you that nurturing americans innovation's ecosystem even in the face of such severe fiscal constraints is necessary for the near term and for the long term the business roundtable is proud to have been an early supporter of the original american competes act and we strongly support israel authorization  policy choices we believe that america will recover from its current economic circumstances and provide prosperity and opportunity for all its citizens i want to thank you again mr chairman and ranking member of all of the members of the  under your leadership this committee has been a model for developing bipartisan solutions that address critical issues we will miss that leadership we look forward to the remainder of your term and i'll be delighted their answer your questions thank you mr dunn has recognized cooking thank you very much mr chairman ranking member hall and members of the committee as the chairman indicated the chamber is the world's largest business federation representing companies of every type that my colleagues here  have special relationships with many of those companies and we all are going to testified today in a way that you will probably find a lot of common as spirit and common thought in our remarks in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the great depression our nation is engaged in a vigorous debate on how to create jobs how to force the long term growth and how to inhance our global competitiveness there are many different voices and viewpoints and plans but almost everyone agrees on one thing the fate of our economy the hopes of our children and the viability of the american dream begin and end with education there was a time not long ago when america was the young questioned leader in education we lead in math and science we lead in the number of post graduate degrees arcade through twelve system was the envy of the world our research fuel tremendous new discoveries in every field those days are gone the rest of the world is catching up and we are running in place or falling behind in some places our education system still has many strengths we have the best universities and research facilities in the world we have many outstanding teaches i'm ambitious students and eager to learn and to realize their potential but it's not good enough our nation can't do well by simply doing ok the statistics tell a very alarming tale high school dropout rates are approaching thirty percent for all students and nearly fifty percent for minorities america's american fifteen year olds ranked twenty first out of thirty and science literacy among their peers from developed countries and twenty fifth out of thirty in math literacy more than half of the u s science  engineering post doctoral students in the u s are on temporary visas from other countries and even so i b m even though i b m top the two thousand and nine list of new patent awards only four u companies were in the top ten so we can't continue this way and expect to compete and win in the worldwide economy we can't continue this way if we hope to lead the world in science technology engineering and math and we can't continue this way if we hope to provide better opportunities and a higher standard of living for our children and our grandchildren that's why the u s chamber and the business community it represents strongly supports the rea uthorization of the competes act this legislation is moving america in the right direction it's improving the number and quality of stem teachers increasing support and access to send stem students attracting under represented groups to stand courses supporting basic restrain research and establishing programs that will help create new forms of new forms of energy and commercialize these innovations th competes ag puts the focus right where it should be on increasing the number of american students proficient in stem and ensure being that we have sufficient r and d funding to drive innovation and to propel technological progress when it comes to research and development the chamber also strongly supports the permanent extension of the r and d tax credit it will encourage need an investment in important areas of the economy such as renewable and energy energy efficiency technologies health care and biotechnology tell can taken together these initiatives can move us in the right direction and i encourage you to move aggressively on it mr chairman with your permission there's another area that i'd like to just mention i spent a good deal of time this morning at walter reed with the wounded veterans and we had a big job fair out there and there are thousands of these people coming out of the military both wounded and otherwise who need our support and the stem program can go a long way to do that one of the points that i would like to suggest is that many of these veterans are certified in porton skills and i hope that the committee working with the government will look at how that certification can be done in a way that it is accepted in the private sector when they leave the military clearly it would help us recruit and it would help us place our veterans who need our support so  chairman that time runs short but i want to suggest that we move forward and when you do so you vigorously evaluate the x progress as the as mr hall suggested so that we do the right thing get the major bang for the buck be vigilant about duplicating of funding of efforts among among different departments i'm more interested that they know what each other is doing and encourage public private partnerships this is a very important thing that you have given much of your skill and energy and the committee has as well and we would do anything we can to help you complete this probably progress america's fact the national association of manufacturers is with the nation's largest in st representing manufacturers in all fifty states every sector we're also a very proud founding member of the task force on american innovation forum to support basic research in the physical sciences and engineering and i want to begin by thanking the committee for championing america competes act i don't behind you where there is no vision the people perish well the bipartisan vision that led to this legislation and it's an act that in two thousand and seven and then the funding recently under the recovery act has really worked to fulfill some of the promise to the country and i think  this panel will be strongly in support of the issue of federal funding for basic research and i certainly want to lend strong words of support as well continued support didn't point out as john kass a lot he did that research has long been a priority  that meeting was identified as a key contributor to economic growth and innovation and so we certainly want to demonstrate broad support for programs were addressing today in interest of time let me focus on three other areas  generations clean efficient sources of energy that competes act calls for a to accelerate transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty s first funding opportunity released last may produce an outpouring of applications and award agreements are now being finalized and the agencies also announced a second round totaling one hundred million dollars and we want to work with the committee certainly to valuate the work of the agency as part of the preparation for this reauthorization so that our can continue to encourage high risk high reward projects and technological innovation and i commend the chair for  the mention of the upcoming fair that's coming it sounds like a very good idea let me talk about stem preparing our next generation manufacturers by improving education strong science technology engineering and math education is a foundation of a technical workforce helps students and workers paired develop the essential skills for competitive manufacturing economy however the government's emphasis on stem skills often begins and ends with the academic side of science and math that's essential of course but the best r and d in the world can't go to market without the ability to produce a product for manufacturers the application of stem skills to real world workplaces is critical to developing this nation's technical workforce programs outline the american compete fact take a step toward this integration of skills needed by employers we can move that integration for the next level through a series or a system of portable skills certification not unlike what  donohue mentioned for the veterans coming back recognize these portable skills certification by broad industry partners and implemented in high school and local two and in some cases four year colleges the national association of manufacturers that are manufacturing  to work with key partners were leaders in skills certification programs to develop a new system credential for students and post secondary education and this for all the bill and melinda gates foundation they did give us a couple of blocks about a million and a half dollars actually  grant to help bring this vision to reality when the academic and technical programs are aligned with industry recognized certifications students can demonstrate and transfer their skills throughout the country and companies gain access to a testimony on the reauthorization of the american this landmark legislation was a turning point in the effort by government and private sector leaders to refocus america's attention on the critical importance of innovation as the driver to grow high paying jobs here and investment stem education investment in r and d and a skilled workforce are at the heart of that challenge the council's two thousand and four national innovation initiative responded to these emerging challenges by bringing together more than four hundred public and private sector leaders to shape a national agenda to drive talent investment and infrastructure and we were pleased to work with our colleagues around this table the council strongly supported the america competes act as it mirrored many of these recommendations and it is also consistent with our next generation initiatives in technology leadership energy security and sustainability and twenty first century manufacturing among those provisions that were included and should be included in future authorizations our strengths in stem education for all americans irrespective of their future careers steady and predictable increases and federal research funding for long term basic research across all agencies greater coordination across federal agencies for innovation policy and very important new models for public private partnerships such as our as a committee looks to reauthorize the america competes act let me emphasize that the importance of these provisions has increased further compounded by the global economic crisis and the highest unemployment levels in america since the great depression during these years the world has not stood still global competition has accelerated especially the rapid advancement of emerging economies all competing for high value investment manufacturing jobs and market success in just one generation emerging economy shares of global imports exports and foreign direct investment have nearly doubled in a decay china's r and d has grown from twelve billion to one hundred two billion now placing china third in r and d spending behind only the u s and japan and china is now poised to surpass japan as the world's second largest economy as companies have evolved from multinationals to global enterprises they are building global talent networks for r and d for design for manufacturing and service hubs to meet growing global consumer driven demand and the realtime global trading tasks has also accelerated information knowledge and technology are increasingly commodities and the economic rewards are going to go to those nations who are prepared to invest in their people take risks to develop and deploy products and services and create entire new and astri's if we want to see investments jobs and growth in united states we must have a vibrant and diversified high tech manufacturing sector our national security and competitiveness demand a strong industrial base under the leadership of our new chairman sam allen the c e o john deere and company the council's competitive initiative is going to redefine the manufacturing enterprise as a value creation system not just a product fabrication process we will focus on productivity drivers and lifecycle cost structures to enable us to rise above the rising bar we will benchmark the policy regulatory and capital and senates our competitor nations are using to attract good manufacturing investments at the forefront of science and technology from the atomic world to large scale extreme systems and we will utilize our leadership technology initiative bringing together the c t o across america's companies led by the c t o of lockheed martin and general electric to really create a roadmap in the business case for  science and technology leadership clearly the energy environmental challenges and how they will impact us competitiveness and a low carbon world is at the heart of these challenges and our new work released at a summit called drive is really also drive a tremendous generation of innovation that will transform the world we have to also ensure that we build on our strengths and use our innovation accelerators such america the need for congressional bipartisan legislation and involving all stakeholders in our society has not diminished it is celebrated the rest of the world is not waiting for us to act we must act  and mr chairman thank you for your tremendous leadership on this committee and your service to our nation thank you thank you it's good to have a good committee work with you mentioned your time there at the military  read this morning within the compete bill we set up a program where the national science foundation fast tracks professionals into teaching and i will talk with mr skelton chairman skelton today about trying to partner with at least in that area hopefully we'll be able to accomplish something and you also mentioned or cautioned about duplication programs were the one of the themes of this committee has been how do we stretch two dollars into three rather than having to spend an extra dollar and what we have tried to do is look at the various research programs within our jurisdiction and create an umbrella to coordinate that we've done that in nanotechnology in water research and we're also making public private sector partnerships and i think what we've done here again is a theme in the much of our legislation when we set up research programs we asked that there be a private sector component or advisory group set up to advise what not for all the research but for apportion research where should we going with that and i think today really is an example of a public partner private public partner private public relationship  that it was the public sector that asked the private sector what do i need to do for to make ourself more competitive you gave us recommendations we put that into legislation you helped us to pass it and so what i would like to do now is really panel what additional public private partnerships might be necessary and mr donahue i know that you had in a recent speech the chamber you want to do ten million jobs in ten years and is there a row there i suspect that  we need seven to replace the people that are out of work we need thirteen for all of those people will be coming into the economy and as was mentioned by a number of the speakers this morning many of these jobs are going to be technologically based or of far more technologically base and they were years before and therefore the work of that your committee is leading here on preparing people for those jobs is critical  suggestion on how to drive those twenty million jobs we made in that speech is first of all is expand our exports because ninety five percent of the people who want to sell things to live somewhere  have the opportunity to do that right now and if we would double it in five and double it again you would create many of those jobs the this and by the way that is a public private partnership because we need the help of the government to build the trade agreements and the trade arrangements that allows the private sector to compete against one hundred fifty other countries around the world that are trying to sell in and out of those markets the second thing we suggested and that i will focus on here for a minute is the issue of infrastructure now we always think about infrastructures roads and bridges and we have a highway bill for that and we ought to hurry up and  there is an extraordinary opportunity and a great deal of money waiting around for infrastructure issues on water on questions of power generation power lines ports railroads much of that money would come from the private sector had we not had this recession it is my opinion we would have bumped up against the wall when we would have more business than we had infrastructure to support it and i think you can find in those areas an extraordinary opportunity for public private partnership both on the technological side on the on the planning and development side and particularly on the financing side and your attention and keep you posted on the material that we're putting together on that there are a whole this series of other issues but i've already taken more time than you expected and i thank you very much anyone else  education those are the fabric of the nation but i always say that what should be done in public education that we have a simple plan is that that ever child leave high school either prepare to go to college without needing remediation when they get there or prepare to go the workforce with skills that are probably the measured and even certified and the dropout rate that that alone would of course transform the people coming into the workforce and would stretch two dollars into probably five dollars i'm not sure but i think the the ability to link it we we've formed a first ever for us council of community college leaders to work with the  to talk about how we make this transition because there is i think for many people who don't know what they want to do the need for them to become prepared we have specific needs of manufacturing but there are other needs in other parts of the economy tom would have a lot of members that are members that have maybe financial services needs or whatever but people need to be prepared and we think that the stem education has a great value and some of that is less traditional than than the k twelve free college curriculum and we think that there are programs i think if you look across america we've solved all of our education problems somewhere we just are terrible at replicating it and if we could just simply replicate what works in the factory body is best practices that are available today no new research you'd get a quantum of improvement in the stem specifically we think that the community college system and that integration has to go much further i think to some of the steps laid out as some of the efforts that are underway are very powerful but we probably need to is doing under our tapping mature workers initiative with atlantic philanthropies is a really a den of this tremendous pool of workers that have skills to actually work with them across communities as part of an innovation strategy to ensure that they can be redeployed into new occupations but i really wanted to mention on the r and d partnership model the importance of bringing the power of modeling and simulation and supercomputing down into the hands of our entrepreneurs and throughout the supply chain this is something where the data the productivity gains and if we can get this tool to do advanced design and prototyping leading companies that are working with the council to really spur this partnership and it's also something that will be embedded into the new art programs as well so that's one particular i want to highlight is very education and improvement and learning from our mistakes learning from what has worked i think is very important to avoid replication of those mistakes so i that isn't very much an opportunity and that's and nine hundred billion i'm sorry i didn't mean to shortchange it the learning what his we've found his work learning within the government what has worked and sharing that information would be very helpful secondly the selection of the technologies that are supported in the research clearly what would be most desirable are making sure that those that are supported are ones that can attract private capital to be able to become commercialized that had broad appeal within the private sector and have an opportunity for return so that the private capital can be applied to it and third related t focusing on broad based projects technologies that have both critical national needs but also are deployable and usable in a number of different sectors of the economy  would be valuable so those are three things that we would suggest thank you i don't impose on the committee's time along with mr hall before you go do you let me just quickly side of this panel that your your staff have been very good to work with as we've gone through this bill we're going to have some more hearings you know a few more months that we're going to be dealing with this we want continue to work with you and we will probably send you questions and i'm not going to i'm not going to ask for an answer now but i want one later mr engler and when smith you have both talked about the manufacturing sector and about we're interested  be quote vigilant about duplication of funding of efforts among the department of education the national science foundation nasa and the department of energy and other federal agencies this was a major concern of ours when this committee considered our  will last in surplus in two thousand and one so a portion of this deficit is from us got music manufacture overseas and running the products back to the united states even if we invest in stem education programs in the track more professionals in the high technology field how do we encourage me from taking production outside the united states other than trade i'm right when they're here specifically thank you for governor i'll be right start on that there are several factors in that question one that many members of congress are now focusing on the administration is focused on is reform of our antiquated out export control laws which have actually cost us high technology exports to this country while our allies those lines of business because they can't compete with the british company or the german company so that's that's a factor a second is one that mr donohue mentioned is is on export promotion we think that a lot of the same knowledge in the hands of small medium sized companies if we look at exports in a macro sense agriculture annually exports what about your factory exports each month roughly ten to twelve times the size of the agriculture export promotion budget dwarfs the commerce department export promotion budget so there's a there's that imbalance i'm happy to support and have an ag background i'm happy to support exports but we addition there are a number of other incentives that countries offer that sort of are added onto that and then when you look at the ability of other countries to impose in their companies territorial tax structures we tried to a worldwide one in effect punish you if you try to bring the capital back home in effect creating an incentive to keep capital offshore and that desperately needs to be addressed and i think  manufacturing taking into consideration that our tremendous standards on safety and health really are the best in the world and we want to maintain those but we do have a collective set of permitting and regulation that really makes it very hard for some of the advanced technologies that we don't want to deploy in the united states to be done here product liability is a very perfect example of this we want to do the next generation batteries are we going to be able to actually manufacture these here and i will give you the example of the flat panel display industry we invented every technology path in the united states for display and we did not make them here and a lot of work can go back and show what that was it was a combination but the rest of the world is creating these policies to attract and keep this manufacturing in fact sweden has a lower capital cost structure than we do for manufacturing and we think of the nordics of having one of the i'm competitive with our tax structure secondly because of the political environment around trade and trade agreements the rest of the world is continue to negotiate market opening opportunities for activity from their countries in other countries well we have not been able to forward a trade agenda we need appropriate trade agreements to be able to invest to be able to export to be able to participate in those economies around the  for five minutes thank you mr chairman and thank all of you for being here my first question is to when you mentioned in your written testimony that innovate america calls for the creation of regional innovation innovation hotspot i'm very interested in this concept as represented a district that has the potential for to do so much i mean we have great research universities and extensive biotech industry biomedical research facilities nasa center and stem high school as well as many other stakeholders could you just elaborate for me briefly on some of the criteria that you would designate a region as an innovation hotspot thank you well of course this concept of regional innovation hotspot is been at the heart of the council's work now for many years because people live and work in innovating regions and we can set the national policy but the actual delay every of the goods and services occurs where people live and clearly having world class universities and the network of community colleges around them are critical to this because this is where the knowledge and the talent generation occurs and then of course having a set of policies that support investment and keep investment as part of this menu for the region one of asian hotspots and the thing i would emphasize most importantly in regions such as yours where there is a lot of success and movement is that the different stakeholders have come together in leadership network so if you have foundations and regions they're co investing around their particular strengths and assets and if you think of places like the midwest the heartland of our manufacturing they are now moving to create the green manufacturing clusters and ensure that all of their investments and their skills are aligned around that and one of the things we should be proud about in the united states is the rest of the world does come to look and see how we've done this in our regions but we need to take it to the next generation and many of the things we're talking about here will be part of that process company stay and go and invest in places where there's a dynamic economy of creativity and talent and infrastructure to build on thank you very much and by the way i'm from cleveland ohio and i'm from akron and you did write something that i would really like for all of the for all of you to to respond to and that is  the question is what is the role that community colleges should play in workforce training but we've seen a lot of money to community colleges through our stimulus package we have looked at how we increase getting students involved what do you think that role should be across the country for community colleges absolutely but i think that community colleges vital role to play because they are by their nature regional and by their hiring ability able to bring in their head they'll become a four year institution by becoming a college well what they need to be a full blown they need to look at the eleventh and twelfth grade i think there's a wasted senior year in a lot of programs for the non college bound and i think there's a possibility in this country to take a grade twelve grade year one year two that are the normal associate degree look at three years four years becoming three that's a big cost savings and allow for that specialization to come earlier with these young people characteristics different industries and that needs to be developed that way there's no cookie cutter approach that needs to be thought through and that was the whole promise of one time was to try to do that and integrate that and i think that there is an area where the chairman question about the where's or duplications in the workforce or they're falling all over each other we get sort that out simplify it and i think that actually i actually think that one of the problem we've got people thinking about workforce is that the peer pressure to go to college is so great to go to college well they need to get they need to also look at all educations pre work and how am i prepared to do some work and we maybe can make working more attractive if they can realize i get a higher income if i get prepared earlier and guess what you can still go to college for america go later if you want to go on then to get a different kind of a degree or even become a ph d in physics like  we most certainly agree that community colleges have a critical role if you look at workforce skills right now there are half life is becoming increasingly shorter so as we have to move on to me and as people that need to learn to accept lifelong learning and need to develop what is going to be critical basic analytical skills for all jobs community colleges play a very critical role and that they should be looked on to thank you thank you so much we could have a three day seminar on this i such an interesting topic that we were going to i'll ask our witnesses to be a little more crisp and will try to get back on time and comrade robock or your record after five minutes all right thank you very much innovation and especially stem education except for about we'll are we not dependent on patent protection for our innovators are we not and i can't help but notice that the patent legislation that was passed by this congress has now waiting action over in the senate  has been applauded in india and china as favoring infringers especially in the sense that we're taking we're trying to take out trouble damages that  some major companies intentionally infringe on a small inventor we're trying to take away that right of having triple damages against the company how do you stand on particular issue  very quickly i think the protection of intellectual property is one of our most critical issues and that we have to be very very vigilant across every sector and i have many concerns in that legislation and the rest way to deal with that so that we have protections the other thing before we go on because we only have a limited time let me just note the electronics industry does have a different interest in mind but that is against intellectual specifically about trouble damages that's what the house is trying to take out the building take that out i don't i'm not under i'm certain i want to check out my all right what i've actually done to you before i say it again wrongly mr donahue that's good advice for all of us congressman and we've all walked on a tight rope on this issue the pressure over in the senate on some of the industries not to try and cut a deal with other industries has been difficult the bottom line is simple both groups of industries can agree on a series of common interests and then they have some specific interests and we've got to get together and put together in this congress and in this senate and with this white house a system that works because we're being disadvantaged around the world right and we need to do it and i don't have anything to say about and i'd put myself in the deal but sooner or later the three of us are going to end up in that deal here well let's just note again it's been applauded over the past and favor of so that we could do whatever interests the electronics industry has had here triple damages i agree that it's not the way to build trust in the builder economy we need a piece of legislation we need to put the common interests and then the individual interests into one bill and we need to get it done because we're losing because without on this issue and for calling this hearing today a question for each one of our witnesses we often hear that there is a sharp age of highly trained american scientist and engineers i wonder what the track record has been from your member companies in hiring science scientists and engineers over the past few years or let's say the past five years you have to divide it between the current economic situation and shall we say normal times but indeed there has been a shortage lack of critical skills particularly in engineering and scientific skills has been a problem that our companies have pointed to regularly even now at the height of the recession unemployment among engineers is three point nine percent which would be the envy of any other skill set so it remains a problem particularly in the future as the workforce that has those skills ages and retires congressman we we will continue to have serious shortage of skills because the demand curve is going up faster than the supply or the suggestions that have been put in and implemented in this legislation has started at the bottom bringing people along who have vengefully get into that curve we must continue h one b and related visas and we have a new problem for years we have brought people to the united states to train at our universities from countries around the world and then after they became very skilled we were able to talk them into sta the other complicating factor is the competition for the best talent just like the basketball league but they'll take the best players wherever they can find them in the world that's true in science and engineering and if we can't find them here we can't bring them here or we can't keep them here then they're going to go elsewhere testified earlier ninety five the markets other places in the world it's a it's a rare company today that isn't getting fifty sixty  i think recognise one of the competitive that allow us to make sure we can develop our own but then keep the best of i would just add to that that in addition to the science and technology skills this concept of having an engineer that is not a commodity engineer is very important for our competitiveness and while we haven't talked about it here ensuring our stem initiatives initiative should also be coupled in our education to make sure that our young people have languages they understand history the humanities and they are because bringing those two things together really creates a future worker that is going to have the creative capacity and the next stage of generation of innovation and one place that does this and i'm prejudiced but i want to share it is at the u s naval academy because the only place in the country where no matter what your major is history arabic whatever you also end up with a full engineering degree and that's an incredible set of skills for going forward in the twenty first century economy i thank you thank you mr chairman dr elders recognized thank you mr chairman and thank you so mark the sixteenth year that i've been in this body i have been the son of a preacher and i inherited his characteristics so i've been preaching to my colleagues to the country to the world for sixteen years target what is discouraging as it is taking sixteen years to reach this point and even with the america competes act i worked on that issue for a number of years fortunately it all came together when i managed to convince the bush administration over with sherry boehlert and frank wolf had a breakfast meeting in the white house that they had to take this on and the president fortunately was easier to do it and the american computer resulted with a lot of collaboration but so much of what you said just indicates the problem governor engler for example you mentioned stem issues  p and so forth and your example of agriculture versus manufacturing is a very important one because i've used an example from that in all my years of our agreeing to get more money for m a m e p and strenuous arguing and a lot of time and we just manage to keep it stable and that's absurd we have had a cooperative extension service in agriculture since about eight hundred sixty somewhere in there at that time the workforce eighty percent of the workforce was on the farm and so it made sense to have a very strong activity there today less than two percent is on the farm and re still ha roughly four hundred million dollars a year the agricultural corp of extension service i don't regret that i think it's valuable but we're spending less than that on the manufacturing extension partnership which is the manufacturing cooperative extension service and i've been able to bring that up even though i point out less than two percent of the workforce is in agriculture and fourteen to fifteen percent the workforce is in manufacturing why haven't we changed that ratio yet in terms of m e t and hours and hours of discussion i convince people one by one but it shouldn't be that hard and if we have as much support from all the manufacturers and their sector and as much support from the school's school boards and faculty as we have from the four of you we would be far far further ahead in solving this problem in the meantime our country i'm afraid continues to go downhill in manufacturing as evidence and turn the time i've been here particularly the last ten years you're right on in your responses the chairman ranking member right on saying what has to be done the problem not in this committee but at one time it was an education labor committee and newt gingrich who is one of the most farsighted individuals i've worked with in the coming years deliberately of manufacturing have to be engaged with the other members of congress to let them know what is really going on in the world and what we have to do if we as a nation are going to survive and continue to be leaders of the world in research and education in manufacturing and most people simply don't realize i come from a manufacturing state a lot of people in michigan recognize that in many parts of it of the country that's simply not true little bit later but right now mr lew is recognized thank you very much mr chairman that is when smith you might be the lead person to address this inquiry that perhaps the rest of the panel would be interested also a couple of organizations i believe the information tech let's see the information technology and innovation foundation and brookings have surfaced the idea of  taking a systematic look and work and innovation perhaps setting up an innovation national innovation foundation or such organization not so much to engage in the individual innovative ideas process but to look at the process overall to understand better and then to advocate for local government national government and to work with the private sector setting up better conditions for innovation apparently other nations have been focusing on this process and while we have been great innovators in individual ideas we are in the process of developing an overall approach which i believe your organization has been working on for some time now and could could you address in the panel address science enterprise and and and other organizations do for other parts of our technology and science enterprises thank you congressman let me just start by saying that as we're hearing today innovation is an ecosystem and involves everything from the tax regulatory workforce the whole manufacturing and national security and i think the biggest challenge for the united states both in the government and also in the private sector is that we don't look at it in the systemic way and we still operate in stovepipes and even in the federal government and i've served in the federal government myself and it's still going on while we have committees we don't really policy and in the private sector the council and our colleagues around the table we can all do that together but we need to connect brookings and other groups are very wise in talking about whether the foundation is the mechanism or not i would perhaps want to comment but we need to do this in the federal government and we need to have private sector groups that also come together to look at the system of innovation and that's what our competitors are doing thank you very much do think that the right incentives where we want to be and i think one thing that's been done well here is battery technology congress and peter knows there's been some significant investment there to try to catch up there are some really big great district and i have a district that really has a lot of development a lot of lot of innovation a lot of creativity in companies and a lot of these are startup companies and they'll come in and say they have this great concept  that they maybe have a demonstration program but they need help and they need help in finding and particularly in this economy where there isn't a venture capital available and so they come in and say what can you do well they are in what we could recommend that should go into the american compete that would help as far as that investment or what to do with in the private sector we are missing so many  y great concepts that so long to develop that we could be using right  now i would just add one that's very important and some states are doing this and i don't know if it's across the board yet in the federal government but that is extending the small business innovation research provision beyond stage  to stage three that takes a company farther in to the commercial prototype demonstration phase and i remember years ago when the japanese were investing in our startups they used to say capital and funding and all sorts of people with great ideas one one caution i would make to the members of the congress while it looks like a wonderful idea to go out in the need of money and drive up the taxes on individuals that's where the greatest amount of investment capital comes from startups you know if you go to the people that are entrepreneurs and say how did you get started they didn't do it in a bank bank lends money lend money to people that have money but i mean that that's the way the structure is so very careful that we keep individuals in a position to support innovation and the support and folks say no and then of course the second place the money is from logic companies who find this says a great place for their own research and development and it's often cheaper of send them to buy it then it is for them to develop it one of the things we term and mentioned before the hearing began is something that i think this committee can look at it certainly was within the purview of this committee other things are outside obviously the tax code and and some other support programs but one of the difficulties that we see in this area is making the connection between those who develop the technologies and those who could see an application for those technologies and finding a way to protect the intellectual property but get more information out more broadly to both potential users and investors about what technologies and their attributes might be available what their time horizons are what it would cost what their advantages are is something a bit more of a national exchange opportunities is something would benefit those companies i just had a  couple quick things and that's what the r and d credit in part was or at and probably this is where your capital gains treatment and some some types of accelerated write off so you can encourage investor pools if there's private capital out there i think w try to make this more attractive again i'm not sure that i'd trust an agency to to do that selecting their states will do it if they view it as critical sometimes too to existing but that those are very  both mailers and myself dealing with the funding issues related m e p as you know the states have been stressed particularly our state of michigan as a critical program for us in that state to help our small manufacturers as we continue to hemorrhage manufacturing jobs and the bill changes some of the contributions right now two thirds of the contribution for m e b comes from states and yet those states that are hit the very hardest and need the services of the m e p are having difficulty to come up with those matching funds you would to r and d investment generally and whether or not government investments in research and development are going to have the same kind of impact that we have seen in the past certainly as we're talking about globalization technology transfer is extremely rapid and as thinking is how effective will this be given that kind of rapid transfer and do we need to be really talking about manufacturing policy total in addition to compete because we're simply not going to get the same kind of bang for our dollar as we have done in the past what you would be thinking about i think congressman you just stated in your last comment very much we have to think of a national manufacturing strategy compass is all the things but also takes us into some of these other spheres that relate to capital cost structures regulatory environment exports and trade and really look at that as something systemic but in terms of r and d we must invest in r and d we must invest in the frontier and we must link the private sector to tremendous investments in the frontiers of knowledge  i believe that government gets significant return on the front to your investments i mean going to the moon running the space shuttle very forward linking activities said and i aged those kinds of investments are fundamental the second thing that i would comment briefly on you're exactly right that is soon as we come up with an innovation everybody all over the world is trying to figure out a way if not to borrow it to use it as a leader for their own innovation but americans are beginning to be able to look around the world now and find things as well that they are able to of their businesses and their processes the third point i'd make while we're talking about manufacturing the often overlooked competitive issues here our supply chain our transportation  all of the technology and software around that the greatest increase and one of the great increases in productivity in this country came during the clinton administration when we put together information technology and supply chain management and it's one of the things that keeps as somewhat competitive in the manufacturing area even though as the governor indicated we have serious this advantages in tax policy and regulatory policy you know competition drives innovation regulations stifles innovation now we need regulation for safety and all of it but we have to be very very careful when we're looking at competing around the world that that it's you know it's always a great idea to start a new group to start but let's go back and look at what we do to help the process or to hurt the process and you can change a lot of things by simply getting rid of the hurt maximizing the help to court one focusing on those technologies and that are broadly applicable when the economy is key that way you don't have to pick winners and losers although the normal process of development will produce more losers and winners secondly as important as the manufacturing sector is and it is very important as a high value added activity these technologies in these activities also have beneficial impact within the services sector within the transportation sector within the hospitality sector tom mentioned one that has been the single biggest driver productivity improvement in this country over the last ten years and that's been information technology an eye opener and i support the idea of federal investments in r and d and public private partnerships with universities certainly nasa close to my district is going to beneficiary of this is done a fantastic job  federal debts about twelve trillion and there comes a point where we get over leveraged in the federal government any private sector business that over leverage would be able to stay in business and i think there's a healthy balance between the federal investment of dollars in the public private partnerships versus what we can do at the federal level to incentivize the private sector and i think that's a philosophical debate we're having in the congress  right now and so in terms of job creation it gives both sides want to the same thing both democrat and powell who want their economy to rebalance want to create more jobs and good jobs in the united states and so with all your experience in the if i might just comment a minute about this there's no question that the federal deficit is a serious matter growing at a compound and significant way a lot of that being driven by  programs that are entitlements that just grow themselves and these are serious matters and there's not a democrat or republican if you so everybody says we are to deal with that but trying to deal with that issue without first dealing with the questions of employment as you indicated is is counterproductive because you're just going to keep driving up federal support programs so we are issue here is to say here's a plan to create jobs hopefully as we go forward we'll be careful not to be adding unnecessarily fed unnecessary federal spending and as the economy grows we're going to be in a much better shape to attack this deficit you ask a fundamental question when can the government when should the government stop investing in significant ways and hope the private sector will will take a larger role and i think if you look at the suggestions of expanding trade expanding infrastructure being very very careful on our reregulation of the capital markets that we could move fission lee in that direction there  one crippling issue keeping us from creating more private sector jobs certainty uncertainty about what tax policy is going to be uncertainty about healthcare policy on certainty about climate policy and if i walked into john's office when he was back in the private sector and said let's create five hundred new jobs he'd throw me out because he'd said i'm uncertain about this i'm uncertain about that until i get some amount of certainty i'm going to keep my cash in my jeans and i'm going to hold off i can agree to more i think the uncertainty here in washington with a lot of policies coming out that uncertainty is keeping a lot of capital on the sidelines and not investing in the private sector the uncertainty is certainly a big part of it obviously there is a role for the government the government needs to do those things that the private sector cannot do and a lot of what's in the american people are things that the private sector cannot do without government help but one of the things that we face day in and day out in terms of making decisions on where to invest in and what to invest is the needs of our shareholders and that is giving them  fair return for the money that they have given us to be stewards of the united states is suffering from what we all recognize and that is that we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world that has in fact we have a tax structure that is incentivized exports and participation in an international marketplace where ninety five percent of the world lives that has an effect we have a start and stop incentive system for research and development where other countries in the world do not have it that has and in fact all of those things have an effect on where the capital our shareholders are not nationalistic they would say you have a global shareholder and thank you mr mcauliffe with no objection we're going to move forward with those members that haven't had a first question if there  is a request for second question later we will do that i'm also going to request that members try to hold their questions about three minutes so that we can try to get to everyone that would encourage you to get here earlier next time  curious what your assessment is of how our technology transfer regimen that we've got today works in terms of getting these technologies out the private sector and how it how it actually intellectual property a baseline for stablish partnerships they often become the hurdle and slows up the process and that's something that across the board i think the community would say is an issue the other challenge i think  and we're seeing in different parts of the country with our national labs and universities how they bring companies and partners and from the beginning to work with them as opposed to waiting until you throw something over the fence is really emerged as the best practice to create committed to working on this very topic and we've actually formed a working group under our technology leadership and strategy initiative to address that and would like to report back to this committee on our findings i just have one very quick standard when they're doing the work that's being pushed by the money in the government they're doing it in partnership with the private sector they're already transferring technology and know how by the people they contract co sponsorship american work spell i think is a great piece of legislation in his testimony that he mentioned the need to ensure that stem education spurs the interest of students in manufacturing careers i guess i just want to ask the three of you  d i agree with this but how do we build that bridge between the classroom to a career choice in manufacturing innovation and concrete ways if you can give us some suggestions how we can make that environment one o the things that we have found that has worked very well is where the real world examples on how those disciplines can be applied to something that's exciting you want to capture the imagination of a young person in college that's how i ended up going into the sciences i got psyched up by looking at some of the research that was being done down the road in schenectady new york and that that got me very excited about it it is  where promising students at the high school level are mentored are given internships in research labs in manufacturing facilities in businesses so they get excited about it and they see people like them stem disciplines we need minorities to see minorities that are successful in the stem disciplines and are excited about those programs tend to work best where they have a real life example of something that's cool do you think we need to do more on the high students and do everything you can to encourage them to be in the stem disciplines and what they find that works best is getting them associated with a lab with a research facility with a manufacturer with a business with scientists with engineers in the high school so that they're excited about that is something to pursue you know this is also a cultural issue issue after the second world war in the korean war there was this tremendous you know sputnik and then you go to the moon and there was this massive effort for people to go into engineering it was the the the way to a better life and to a great job and all well we have mature i'll use that word and now it's hard in high schools and many high schools to convince people they ought to put all the time and energy into the most complicated subject it has for a while it was hard to have people see a great career there but there is a resurgence of demand and of need the computer tech revolution got that started people saw that as a way i think i think demand and need  have a great deal to do to show people where they can do well and where they can do things that they can achieve not only on a personal basis but a financial basis and there needs to be some of that cultural goings on that's what john was talking about what happened to me was in college he went down the street he got you know when i school good he went down the street and he got motivated we need and he wasn't only motivated because of what he saw he was motivated because people convinced me to do i think there  to actually go into manufacturing operations because the modern ones are extremely high tech and exciting i mean how many have been in a clean room for him and that's something we could all do in our communities and it's something that would have a big cultural shift that compete in the work that it has done and the good that is done my question really goes to the preparation skills and i'm going to go back to california serious financial trouble as are many of the universities across the nation particularly the public universities in california last year and this year forty thousand students are not able to lack of money to fund the universities so my question to you is what can be done about that all of the talk is good but and there's no money there's no action and are your organizations willing to have the tax increases necessary specifically university of california short a billion the state university showed a billion that is two tenths together two tenths of one percent of the state's economy to find that two billion dollars what is your view on raising taxes to fund higher education  i got the short straw i just three quick things number one yes there are those serious problems in california as well as in other states and what we're seeing and i was going to make the point before we were talking about the community colleges more and more people and this is another pressure on the community colleges are going to the community colleges for the first two years and families find that they can afford that and then might be able on with some of federal and state help to get into the universities for the last two years now this creates a problem for the universities because you know they sort of make money on the first couple of years but they don't make it on the on the back years to the question would we increase taxes i might my view is first of all california has a hell of a lot of problems i'm going anything to do with the education system in fact they do because more than half the budget is education i and my lads i'm thinking about the college education system i would agree with you because when you teach in the california system and you can retire at fifty one years of age it had to have painful medical deal whatever the exact new numerics are you've got real serious issues whose my deal is you know i always thought the issue by saying what don't we have to spend and then how do we get additional revenue and how does that come some of it should be from the students some of it should be from the community some of it from contributions because there are major efforts there and then if you're down to taxes that's up to the community and what i support them and way to their proposed r d l is everybody everybody has got a new tax the president has a whole slew new taxes all the states have new taxes all the states are coming that are in the particularly the big states are coming to the federal government some money if you buy everybody's proposal on a tax we're going to be in serious problem we need to look at totality we need to do what we need to make this country work but by the way we can spend money like nobody you ever saw any other witness want to address that quickly just very quickly i mean business  always been willing to invest in things that pay off but before that investment comes we have to make sure that we're operating efficiently and even in the higher education system there are opportunities to overhaul the delivery system through greater in the in the higher education structure to be very blunt about it would be unsustainable in the private sector so we need to do a better job doing that then if that is done and we need to invest more then yes we always support those investments if they'll science but before that i was an engineer so mr donohue i would i would say yes we do need to have fewer lawyers in congress and probably some more more scientists and engineers and also when they agree with you education in my subcommittee research in science education we've had a couple of hearings on informal science education and i think this is an area where it's important also for businesses to get involved we saw some of the best informal education taking place where business would get together say with a science museum or many other over two hundred fifty million dollars in private sector stem education partnerships these involve universities large corporations foundations and non profits and government agencies is there anything more that you think the federal government should be doing to be a effective collaborator in these partnerships or to better support private sector stem education initiatives especially in informal education seventh graders women minorities but across the board to actually be exposed to math and science through project based learning and you know just as companies often sponsor a school  if you have any one of the things that i think government ought to consider because it does a lot of good work also whether the national labs is doing the kinds of things that are being pioneered in the in the private sector never mention the stem camps but also highlighting the technology i think tom mentioned earlier and it was one of the one of the reasons i went into this science is i mean in the fifty's and the sixty's i'm giving away my age fifty the excitement of the space race was what stimulated a lot of people a lot of what is done in government particularly in the science area not just within the department of defense but outside of it and i nasa the national labs is something that should be looked at like what the private sector does a stimulation and excitement a point of excitement to get young people d to do better now mr littlejohn you're recognized for three minutes thank you mr chairman and i really appreciate you in this hearing to mr chairman because as we talked about moving forward in the spring up economic opportunity and realizing where we've fallen further and further behind in this country the lack of our ability to get more students in engineering fields in science fields the creativity the innovation the problem solvers that are going to be key to moving us ahead and keeping us ahead are all important important policy decisions we have to make and i certainly hope that as we embark upon education reform later on this year that we have an emphasis in creativity making sure that we're educating problem solvers and we have a structure that looks like that now with that being said with the commitment that we sounds like we all have with creating a systemic innovation policy and moving forward along those lines and looking to investments that we've made national treasures and our national laboratories i come from a state and a district that has one we have to n s a laboratories in mexico sandia national labs out of special labs we have white sands with nasa down in southern new mexico and you truly see how we can bridge those opportunities with tech transfer making sure that we're bringing our universities in and we're looking to our national laboratories to create those public private collaborative and partnerships the investment that's required for the r and d to allow for that modeling to allow for the simulation to get in the hands of the private sector all sound like things that we agree upon it sounds like we have support from all business entities from those of you that are responsible for making sure that we're sometimes representing interests that sometimes compete with one another but this is certainly an issue that we all can agree upon and just to hear quickly from you on from a tech transfer perspective with the problems that you hear from companies that are and also to hear your thoughts in new mexico with los alamos national laboratories a program has been created where our scientists engineers and researchers are working with local school districts in teachers teaching teachers if you will bringing them in and then getting those programs back into the school districts the school districts that have been beneficiaries of these programs have seen their mass course increase dramatically through the roof again teaching kids how to be problem solvers and i certainly hope mr chairman that as we build upon all that competes has to offer which it is in there that we look to see how we can incorporate these other ideas and programs that are working and make the investments necessary and truly see the partnership that can come from the government national science foundation and elsewhere what are the programs that are working and scale those out so that really was the foundation of this mr tacos recognized for three minutes thank you mr chair first let me thank john kass to lobby for a couple of shout outs for schenectady new york  appreciate that and i appreciate the panel and their input today let me frame my question first with a couple of comments i heard a couple times over from the panel uncertainty going to great with you more the certainty is a major factor but the certainty of an american clean energy opportunity here in this house was passed and we're still fighting the science of having to have a clean energy economy i don't know how we resolve that and then also when you speak mr donahue about the global space race we have a global race that we're supposed to be entering now because it we don't we're going to be letting down generations of american workers we're still struggling with that issue here i don't know what it takes maybe more engineers in the process my question is the grohl of the clean energy economy do you see that bearing great relevance is it growing more important as a sector of our economy and will government funds be required to at least in the short term to advance that effort two points about clean energy economy first of all there are great opportunities to create jobs to advance science and to engage people in the process of significant expansion of the clean coal efforts that people are engaged in on a scientific basis and carbon capture the issues of nuclear power where as governor engler indicated we have let a lot of that capacity go elsewhere we now have twenty six potential  sites there there we can get a lot of money for that we'll have to come from the government a little backstop but you're going to have to assure that after i build it i can open it not be stopped by thirty environmental laws suits because otherwise you're not going to get any money to do that there are all sorts of issues that in a green economy that will create jobs there's one other thing to understand though if i buy a green refrigerator i'm not going to buy the other refrigerator i was going to buy so there's some activities that are significant increases in economic activity some that are substitutes and one also has to understand that much of the green economy to date has depended on a good deal of federal  subsidies or incentives particularly in alternate fuels and so on we are going to have to work our way through this and it's a long way from start to finish there are clear benefits if we can rally around at the same time we have to be careful and one of the major issues with the bill that came out of the house and starts a great a global trade was you know by saying that all we have to do is decide we don't like this country or that country's environmental position and we can put taxes on the on the products they sell in the united states we need to take a broader look at these issues we want a domestic bill and we want to global bill but we want one that keeps people working that uses technology that we have a lot of engagement in and that and that is a global in nature we've got to get people around the world involved we don't we're not taking advantage of it to briefly come in here in my written testimony and i'm sorry i didn't have time to bring in the oral testimony last year we convened a large number of our o s to address the issue of what do we do about global climate change and they divided themselves up into technology sectors and pathways in our report the balancing act climate change energy security in the u s economy highlights exactly what you're talking about and that is irrespective of your position on the regime that's going to be necessary any regime is going to require substantial investment in technology and if we do it smart and we do the whole array of technologies we can minimize the impact on the economy so it is absolutely vital to the united states to this country into the world for two reasons the two very important reasons one is to have the energy to continue to drive our economy the other is to be responsible in illegally aiding global climate change and global warming and perhaps even drive our own energy security and i think if both if you have something compelling to say is this myth i would just say that the clean energy and also in addition to energy security climate is going to actually drive how things are made and that's a tremendous opportunity needs to be embedded in our manufacturing initiative which connie and thank you for your patien and you're well recognized for three minutes thank this chairman thank the panel for being a part of this great national conversation to move us forward from st louis and we've got a great science infrastructure there from from great companies  great institutions of higher education and we've seen kind of a tale of two different industries there in terms of innovation aviation industry based there has been right on the cutting edge of innovation not only of a they produce great products for our country but also opened up a lot of markets overseas where as the auto industry we've seen the auto industry to be slow to innovate i think they are coming around but they've been slow and lost a lot of markets overseas so we also have seen really a disconnect between those great companies and institutions of higher education with some of our k twelve education has not been producing you know that new generation has been capturing them early enough and our companies are beginning to see that connection and many are partnering so really pleased to see some efforts there in terms of parting companies directly with our schools but i really think you know we seen innovation you know the estimates are about half the economic growth in our country from more war to the present was from innovation and new technology and i think we've got to get back to these basics of making things again and making things that matter new innovative products that attract people that want to be involved they can grow jobs here at home but also grow markets around the world and that gets certainly key in the energy sector and also keeping that talent pool here and attracting it bestiality all over the world i appreciate what you said earlier about that one of the ideas has been put out by greg mas with nest he has advocated for establishment of a coordinated national innovation policy infrastructure that he has said the u s is the only major industrialized nation without an institutionalized science technology innovation  not received enough attention in terms of our policy development i guess wanted to ask the panel how do you see that kind of a coordinated national effort really going forward from here your microphone the white house really should take the leadership to do this cross agency coordination for national innovation strategy and i think they are making progress and the private sector and the groups at the table today we all work very closely and look forward to working on that very very much for the ecosystem thank you coordination is essential to maximizing investment and competition is absolutely essential to creating the products that make us a leader around the world in coordination and competition occasionally bump into each other very di just like we have in this country for a long time looked at the conference of environmental impact thing that we do from a policy standpoint it is vitally important to look at the impact on economic activity on the different policy initiatives that we bring on the innovation process and our ability to compete and to win quite frankly that's a very important concept thank you mr carnahan and mr roebuck or do you have some concluding wisdom for us well thank you very much mr chairman i want to thank you for your leadership in holding this hearing and i want to thank the witnesses have been very valuable exchange of ideas just for the record i'm going to throw out some things that weren't covered and just so people can be know that that was part of the discussion and even though it's right here at the end my belief is that policies that lower the compensation for those people especially young people who go into science is technology and engineering of then surely work against us by discouraging high quality people from getting in these areas so i imagine you would telling them to take a small a lower wage because they can get some h one b b b so person from india to do the job this is not good for encouraging more young people and other people to get into the professions  engineering we need to drive up the wages for people who are engine ears and scientists rather than bring them down and one of the one and one of the most effective in we talk about education but again let's bring the wages up of people who are involved in this know there's never a mention in education of pain teachers who math and science more money than people who teach poetry in physical education and that would have a tremendous impact on our students by bringing higher quality teachers as your pain the more money more pay will get you higher quality and better people involved and last when we're talking about graduate students and universities let's let's just remember when we see that fifty one or fifty five percent of our graduate students in these high tech areas are foreigners that this too is damaging to our country the fact is we should be focusing on educating our own young people and filling those slots rather than going to foreigners who by the way subsidize their young people they come over here to learn a great deal about the important scientific endeavors and then they go back and they use that knowledge against us in their own countries and that's not good and indeed and one last issue technology transfer any technology transfer any control that we have if we loosen those and it results in technology going overseas that will eventually be used to helping their manufacturing to compete with ours is working against our interests and especially it works against us if it puts us in jeopardy and endangers our national security those are just a few thoughts and i thought i would throw them out here at the end of the hearing my time is up thank you thank you mr obama is a great country  to all four of you have displayed i just want to make two points it based on my educational career twenty two years long most important thing is to educate for the jobs of the future too often we tend to be educating for the jobs of the past or perhaps the present but we have to anticipate what the jobs of the future are going to be an educated courting me that's not easy but it has to be done secondly math and science education has to be done properly in the early elementary grades if you really want someone to become an engineer that means they have to do well in math and  no mentor school to the extent that they like it when they get to high school they will take the advanced math and science courses there and when they go to the university they were slip right into the program too often and i learned this from my colleagues in universities too often someone who would make a good scientist or a good engineer was not excited but science in the early years in high school took the easiest courses possible then went to the university and said i'd like to be an engineer or a physicist or whatever they say oh sure we'd love to have to do that but you first of all you have to take two more years at the university in order to break it up to speed with the math and science that you need well obviously very few of them are going to say well yes i'd love to spend two more years here and spend another eighty thousand dollars on my parents money or they're just going to say well ok i'll take something else and so we really have to be far sighted enough to that i was just thinking back you listen to my friend from california here back when i was on board the word was that the lord kept the  this is that i need to talk with mr rangle oberstar berman miller obi and waxman this afternoon and see if they will share some of our jurisdiction and we could really make some real progress thank you the record will remain open