[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E234-E235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    JANUARY 31, 2001 SPEECH TO THE UNIVERSITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 28, 2001

  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I had the honor to present my maiden 
speech as Chairman of the House Science Committee to the Universities 
Research Association on January 31, 2001.
  In my remarks, I outlined my goals and initial priorities for the 
107th Congress. As I said in the speech: I want to ensure that we have 
a healthy, sustainable and productive R&D establishment--one that 
educates students, increases human knowledge, strengthens U.S. 
competitiveness and contributes to the well-being of the nation and the 
world. With those goals in mind, I intend to concentrate initially on 
three priorities--science and math education, energy policy and the 
environment--three areas in which the resources and expertise of the 
scientific enterprise must be brought to bear on issues of national 
significance.
  Mr. Speaker, for the information of my colleagues, I submit herewith 
the full text of my remarks into the Congressional Record.

 CONGRESSMAN SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R-NY) SPEECH TO UNIVERSITIES RESEARCH 
                     ASSOCIATION--JANUARY 31, 2001

       It's a pleasure to be with you this morning. This is 
     actually my first speech as chairman of the House Science 
     Committee, so I want to use this opportunity to give you a 
     general sense of where I hope to take the Committee. You can 
     think of this ``maiden speech'' as a kind of experiment--if 
     it works, you'll be the only people to have heard these 
     themes when they were fresh; if it doesn't work, you'll be 
     the only people to have heard them--period.
       Actually, though, after serving on the Committee for 18 
     years and having worked with many of you, the issues before 
     the Science Committee are hardly virgin territory for me.
       I even think I know the recipe for becoming a popular 
     chairman. My formula was prompted by Clark Kerr's famous 
     advice on how to become a popular university president. He 
     said that to be successful at running a university you just 
     had to provide three things--``football for the alumni, 
     parking for the faculty and sex for the students.'' 
     Committees are supposed to be a bit more tame, so I figure 
     the three things I have to provide to be popular are: press 
     coverage for the Members, parking for the staff, and money 
     for the scientific community.
       I do indeed intend to provide those three items, but I want 
     to go beyond that. I want to build the Science Committee into 
     a significant force within the Congress and, with that 
     momentum, I want to ensure that we have a healthy, 
     sustainable, and productive R&D establishment--one that 
     educates students, increases human knowledge, strengthens 
     U.S. competitiveness and contributes to the well-being of the 
     nation and the world.
       With those goals in mind, I intend to concentrate initially 
     on three priorities--science and math education, energy 
     policy and the environment--three areas in which the 
     resources and expertise of the scientific enterprise must be 
     brought to bear on issues of national significance.
       Education is perhaps the most pressing dilemma of the 
     three. I imagine that by now we can all recite the litany of 
     evidence that our education system is not performing 
     adequately--particularly--but not exclusively--at the K-12 
     level. There are the TIMSS surveys showing
       The evidence is easy to adduce because it's been familiar 
     for so long. In fact, I dare say, the concerns have not 
     changed appreciably since I first joined the Science 
     Committee in 1983. Unfortunately, a familiar list of 
     solutions doesn't spring as readily to our lips.
       Now, I hope you won't be surprised to learn that I don't 
     have a ready set of solutions. I have not been holding back 
     on providing answers all these years just so I could offer 
     them up the moment I became chairman. What I do have is a set 
     of questions that I hope will frame the Committee's agenda as 
     we put together an education program, in concert with the 
     Administration and other House committees.
       Here are some of my questions. First, how can we attract 
     more top students into science and math teaching?
       This is a fundamental question. No curriculum, no piece of 
     technology, no exam is going to cure our education ills if we 
     don't have teachers who are conversant with the subject 
     matter they are teaching, and who can communicate their 
     excitement and their comfort, to the students. I think 
     scholarships are part of the answer, but clearly we need 
     something move systemic.
       Second, how can we ensure that technology actually improves 
     education? The government's focus needs to shift from merely 
     providing access to technology to figuring out how to use it 
     in a manner that truly offers education, not distraction or 
     empty entertainment or even mere information.
       Third, how can we use exams in a way that promotes critical 
     thinking, retention of knowledge and a love of learning? The 
     current mania for measurement is a necessary antidote to an 
     era marked by a lack of accountability. But the wrong kinds 
     of tests will not only mask evidence of a continuing decline; 
     they could contribute to it.
       This isn't a speech on education policy, so I'll leave the 
     matter there, for now--except to say that the question I've 
     raised--and indeed the entire national discussion about 
     education--must be of active concern to your institutions.
       And one of my goals will be to find new ways to draw on the 
     resources of our great research universities to help answer 
     the kinds of questions that I just posed. The partnership 
     between universities and industry has grown markedly closer 
     in recent years; the relationship between universities and 
     our nation's school systems must do the same.
       Universities can also play a role in addressing my second 
     priority area--energy policy. Clearly, as President Bush has 
     said, we need a comprehensive energy policy that looks at all 
     aspects of supply and demand, in both the short- and long-
     term.
       But my focus will be on ensuring that we concentrate 
     sufficiently on alternative sources of energy--wind, solar, 
     fuel cells, etc.--and on conservation and efficiency. These 
     are areas that have been underfunded in terms of both 
     research and deployment.
       Moreover, we have spent so much time over the past 20 years 
     having philosophical battles over government energy programs 
     that we haven't devoted enough effort to figuring out how to 
     make the programs work better. The energy supply programs of 
     the Department of Energy (DOE) are due for a good, hard look 
     from people who unequivocally support their goals.
       In the area of environment, as well, our government 
     research programs need to be reviewed by people who genuinely 
     want to improve them, by folks who want more reliable 
     results, not more convenience ones. We need to ensure that 
     research in ecology and other environmental sciences--fields 
     in which we know astonishingly little--that such research is 
     adequately funded and is conducted by top scientists both 
     inside and outside the government.
       But in making environment a focus of the Science 
     Committee's work, I want to do more than explore the workings 
     of government research programs. I want the Committee to be a 
     central forum to learn about the science behind ongoing--and, 
     even more importantly, brewing--controversies in 
     environmental policy.
       Two prominent examples spring to mind immediately. First, 
     global climate change, where the scientific consensus is 
     growing all the time that we face serious consequences from 
     human-generated emissions of greenhouse gases; and second, 
     biotechnology, where I believe more serious attention needs 
     to be paid to concerns about possible ecological impacts even 
     as we acknowledged the potential benefits of genetically 
     modified organisms.
       Now, I realize, of course, that I have been speaking to you 
     for a while without mentioning any of the science policy 
     issues usually discussed at URA gatherings. Well, I did say 
     that this was an experiment--but it's not supposed to be one 
     that tests your patience.
       But I wanted to start with my three immediate priorities 
     because they will be the subject of our first three full 
     Committee hearings--probably in early March--and because I 
     think that the entire research community needs to think more 
     about such issues, about the intersection of research with 
     our national goals and concerns.
       But I don't mean to indicate the Committee will turn away 
     from the equally critical concerns about the health of the 
     research enterprise itself.
       So let me say unambiguously that I will fight to increase 
     research funding, in general, and funding for the physical 
     sciences, in particular. Unique and vital DOE facilities, 
     like Fermilab, must continue to prosper, even as we 
     participate in international projects like the Large Hadron 
     Collider.
       With that commitment in mind, I want the Committee, early 
     on, to take a serious look

[[Page E235]]

     at the balance within the federal research portfolio. Now we 
     all know that that is a somewhat euphemistic way of raising 
     the question, ``Is biomedical research bulking too large in 
     the federal research budget?'' Those who believe that the 
     National Institutes of Health (NIH) are eating up a 
     disproportionate share of the federal budget have two solid 
     facts on their side: the extraordinary growth in that share, 
     and the dependence of the American economy, and of biomedical 
     research itself, on a wide range of research disciplines. And 
     a cursory look at the numbers certainly gives one the feeling 
     that things may be a little out of whack.
       But if we are to take action, we're going to need to dig a 
     little deeper and ask some tougher question. How would we 
     know if NIH was over-funded in either relative or absolute 
     terms? Given the public concern with health and the advances 
     in biology why shouldn't NIH
       These are not meant, in the least, as merely rhetorical 
     questions. They are difficult questions that ought to be 
     explored further if we're going to make a case for either 
     limiting NIH's growth or greatly increasing the budget for 
     every other field.
       Similarly, we need to ask tough questions, if we're really 
     thinking about doubling the entire federal civilian science 
     budget. Questions like: Why double? What are we going to get 
     for that money? How will we know if we are under- or over-
     spending in any field?
       The science policy debate sometimes seems composed entirely 
     of randomly generated numbers. We really need to push for 
     more data.
       I don't say this out of any opposition to the proposed bill 
     that would set a goal of doubling the science budget. In 
     fact, I'm kindly disposed toward that bill. I would like to 
     find a way to pass it. The bill might do some real good 
     because it would put Congress on the record as saying that 
     science spending is a real priority.
       But that shouldn't obscure the fact that doubling will 
     never become a reality if we can't make a much more solid 
     case to the appropriators.
       It's a case that is going to have to be made agency by 
     agency, as well as in general terms. Looking at DOE, for 
     example, I want to get a much clearer sense of the 
     Department's needs as it tries to upgrade aging facilities 
     and replace a retiring workforce. And despite years of post-
     Cold War studies, my sense is that we still don't have a 
     clear policy regarding the role of the national laboratories.
       If we're going to increase the federal science budget, we 
     also need to take a much harder look, brushing aside all 
     cant, at the changing nature of our research universities. 
     I'm thinking here especially of the questions raised by the 
     growing partnership between universities and industry.
       That partnership, encouraged by legislation, is having many 
     beneficial effects. But it's time we make sure that we 
     understand better how it's affecting the university--in terms 
     of education, the free flow of information, the nature of 
     university research, and the development of intellectual 
     property, to name just a few matters of concern.
       This is the time to review that relationship, when it is 
     still developing and fluid. Neither partner has been 
     sufficiently willing to do that. University officials 
     sometimes simultaneously argue, on the one hand, that 
     partnerships are at the cutting-edge of organizational 
     arrangements and, on the other, that their hallowed 
     institutions are still seeking the truth in the time-honored 
     way that has not changed appreciably since the Middle Ages. I 
     exaggerate, of course, but the discussion really does have to 
     be a little bit more open.
       Universities ran into trouble in undergraduate education, 
     in part, because they were unwilling for too long to 
     acknowledge that the rise of the modern research university 
     had changed the nature of the campus. That reluctance stemmed 
     from the understandable fear that raising questions would 
     lead some to argue that research and education could not 
     productively co-exist. But in the end, the lack of discussion 
     hurt undergraduate education in a way that put research at 
     greater risk. An honest, open look at partnerships now should 
     help make them more productive rather than hampering them.
       Obviously, there are many more issues before the Committee, 
     but what I've discussed should give you a good sense of my 
     approach and concerns.
       My goal is to be your staunchest ally and your fairest 
     critic. To be Shakespearean about it, my role model will be 
     Cordelia--King Lear's daughter who would not utter false 
     professions of love, but who stood by her father when 
     everyone else had deserted him. I won't press the analogy--I 
     don't want to imply that university presidents will become 
     crazed, naked old men wandering helplessly about the moors.
       All I mean to say is that you can count on me to fight for 
     the nation's interest by bolstering, and drawing on the 
     expertise of the scientific community. You can also count on 
     me to ask tough and uncomfortable questions to ensure that 
     the scientific community is acting in its and the nation's 
     long-term interests. I intend to do that openly, fairly, 
     cooperatively and with true intellectual curiosity.
       I want to run the Committee in a way that would make 
     Einstein smile. I want to make sure that as long as I'm 
     chairman, no one plays dice with your universe.
       I look forward to working with all of you.

       

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