[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 27, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13262-S13264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. McCAIN:
  S. 1804. A bill to direct the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation 
with the Director of the Office of Science Technology and the Director 
of the National Science Foundation, to establish a program for 
increasing the United State's scientific, technology, and mathematical 
resources, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, 
Science, and Transportation.


  the 21st century technology resources and commercial leadership act

 Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President I am please to introduce a bill 
intended to preserve the United States' world leadership position in 
technology into the coming century. This legislation is intended to 
assure that our scientific, mathematics, engineering and technology 
resources are surpassed by no one. It is intended to ensure that our 
most precious national resources, our people, receive the best 
education and training through our best national product, innovation. 
We must allow our most creative forces to interact to achieve improved 
math and science education in our schools. We must assure more highly 
trained college graduates in science, math, engineering and technology. 
And we must encourage the retooling of our country's experienced minds 
to address the problems and the solutions of tomorrow.
  Specifically, this legislation uses a portion of each H-1B visa fee 
to provide grants for innovative programs which will improve the math, 
science, engineering and technology skills of Americans so that they 
can fill the estimated average of 137,800 new positions expected to be 
created in these fields each year from now through 2006. During the 
interim, while the American pipeline of talent is filling, the bill 
lifts the caps on H-1B visas to allow our American companies to 
continue to grow and prosper.
  This legislation is necessary and beneficial to our nation. Let me 
explain in some detail why.
  First, although this country can be proud of having some of the most 
highly regarded colleges and universities in the world, our elementary 
and secondary education system is not sufficiently emphasizing science 
and math in the curriculum. Our students are falling behind in these 
areas. The results of the 1998 Third International Math and Science 
Study (TIMSS) are instructive. In math, our 4th graders ranked 12th out 
of 26 countries. Not a stellar performance. But even more discouraging, 
by 12th grade, the U.S. math rank was 19th out of 21 countries. As a 
result, not enough American college students are majoring in the 
sciences, including computer science, mathematics and engineering to 
fill the escalating need for highly trained professionals.
  According to information compiled by the American Electronics 
Association, at the same time that the number of jobs in these fields 
has increased by 20%, the number of college graduates with degrees in 
engineering, engineering technology, computer science, mathematics, 
business information systems, and physics has declined by 5%.
  To fill the jobs available, American companies are finding it 
increasingly necessary to hire foreign professionals. When they recruit 
on university campuses in the United States, 32% of the Masters degree 
and 45% of the doctoral degree candidates are foreign, not American, 
students. Even though they have been educated here, these foreign 
students cannot remain here to work without a visa.
  Even with these graduates available, there are more jobs to be filled 
than qualified candidates. When our companies cannot hire qualified 
people to work for them, they cannot function--they cannot compete. 
Most of these companies have concluded long ago that they need to 
retain the qualified people that they do hire. They understand that one 
way to retain them is to provide training to continually update and 
upgrade their skills. There are many examples of these kinds of 
programs.
  In addition, there are older American workers with advanced technical 
skills that are outdated, or whose experience is in industries which 
are not in a growth mode. Companies are finding ways to assist some of 
these professional to retool for the current and future needs of 
business. An example of retraining experienced workers is a program at 
San Diego State University. That institution's Defense Conversion 
Center has focused on retraining displaced defense industry 
professional, including military personnel and aerospace engineers.
  Let me read from their project proposal description dated 9/21/99.

       The expansion of the H-1B visa program is a limited and 
     temporary fix to a critical national problem. Unless we find 
     creative ways to meet our workforce needs internally, our 
     ability to produce cutting-edge products will erode. Indeed, 
     some experts predict that our position as the world's leader 
     in innovation will slip from first place to sixth early in 
     the next century. The risk goes beyond losing our competitive 
     edge in the global marketplace; without a strong technology 
     base, our national defense system will be jeopardized.

  The proposal goes on to describe the university's program:

       In the early 1990's, the defense industry in San Diego 
     virtually disintegrated, resulting in the loss of over 42,000 
     jobs. Established with a grant from the Department of 
     Defense, the SDSU Defense Conversion Center developed several 
     certificate programs designed to fast-track displaced defense 
     industry workers back into the marketplace. To date, over 
     1100 individuals have enrolled in the Center, and 80% of 
     those who participated in the program found or retained 
     employment in such high-tech fields as radio-frequency 
     design, software engineering, concurrent design and 
     manufacturing, and multi-media design.

  Many companies are also finding that it is not enough to focus on 
only their short term hiring needs. There are numerous examples of 
companies partnering with their local schools to provide innovative 
changes in curriculum and skill sets.
  For example, Hewlett-Packard has joined forces with Colorado State 
University to assist minority students beginning their studies at CSU. 
The assistance includes 10-week internships at H-P, during which CSU 
provides instructors to H-P to teach calculus. The internships provide 
a bridge from the academic to the real world, demonstrating the 
application of math and science skills. They also provide the freshmen 
with valuable experience that can lead to permanent jobs at H-P.
  Eastman Chemical Company in Tennessee offers another example. Working 
with its local school system, the company focused on two objectives: to 
help prepare and motivate all students to develop competency in math 
and science, and to create a school system of such excellence that 
college graduates would be drawn there as a great place to raise 
children. The result was several programs, including an ``Educator on 
Loan'' program where on a rotating basis, teachers could work at the 
company's manufacturing plant to under the skills required.
  These private/public partnerships are an excellent start. But these 
efforts are not sufficient to solve the problems we have with 
maintaining our country's ability to compete and lead the world in the 
21st century. We must encourage more innovation, more achievement to 
fill the pipeline so that our children will be able to prosper in the 
technological revolution underway.
  This legislation encourages innovation. It provides financial 
assistance for ideas which will work. The proposed legislation is broad 
enough to cover any idea which can be demonstrated to produce results. 
Some of the programs

[[Page S13264]]

I think should be considered would be to provide scholarships to 
students who possess the requisite talent and are willing to become 
certified as math and science teachers, and who will agree to teach for 
a number of years. Scholarships for students who will major in math, 
science, engineering or technology fields makes sense. But we should 
not limit our selves to these stock type approaches. There will be many 
other new and creative ideas and we should welcome them and reward 
them, as long as they produce the outcome we want. We want to improve 
and increase the American talent pool.
  In the meantime, I think it is important not to force our companies 
to develop off-shore bases in order to hire the foreign professional 
they need. The history of numeric caps on H-1B visas is one of best 
guess, rather than of calculated need. It is difficult to anticipate 
the total need, but simply inserting a number because it is politically 
agreeable isn't the right answer. During the last session we adopted 
legislation produced through the fine efforts of Senator Abraham and 
others who worked tirelessly in addressing a broad array of problems 
and issues.
  The result is that our law now requires those who are dependent on H-
1B worker to attest, to give their oath, that they have tried to hire 
an American to fill the position unsuccessfully before applying for a 
foreign worker visa. These requirements are stringent. They protect 
American workers against companies which might otherwise ignore 
qualified applicants in order to bring in a foreign worker. The law 
protects against layoffs followed by foreign hiring.
  With this law in place and with diligent enforcement of its 
requirements, there is no reason to also pick an arbitrary number as a 
cap for H-1B visas. We can let the marketplace prevail. We can focus on 
improving our own resources and our own children's education so that in 
the future we will have more highly skilled professionals to fill these 
positions. When our supply meets the demand we will have achieved the 
goals of improving our education curriculum and our ability to remain 
leaders in the 21st century.
                                 ______