[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 76 (Thursday, June 9, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6312-S6313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BINGAMAN:
  S. 1211. A bill to establish an Office of Foreign Science and 
Technology Assessment to enable the United States to effectively 
analyze trends in foreign science and technology, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on foreign Relations.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President--I rise today to introduce a bill that 
would establish a capability within the State Department Science 
Advisor's Office to assess science and technology outside the United 
States.
  Over the past two years I have traveled to Taiwan, China and India to 
better understand why these developing countries' economies were 
growing so rapidly. I learned that in all cases the primary reason for 
their robust growth was the emergence of a well-trained science and 
engineering workforce that tied directly into their highly competitive 
innovation economies.
  For instance, Taiwan now leads the world in general purpose foundry 
computer chip facilities, controlling about 70 percent of the world 
market. A recent Defense Science Board Report entitled ``High 
Performance Microchip Supply'' notes that by the end of 2005 there will 
be 59 300mm chip fabrication plants with only 16 of these located in 
the United States. The number of U.S. plants has remained constant for 
the past two years, so as the number of Asian foundries has risen, the 
share of these advanced chip making facilities has declined from 30 to 
20 percent. This report also notes that capital expenditures in the 
U.S. chip industry has fallen from a high of 42 percent in 2001 to 33 
percent in 2004. Conversely, Taiwan's investment has increased from 15 
percent in 2002 to 20 percent of the world's capital expenditure in 
chip facilities and now leads Korea, Japan, and Europe.
  There is a good explanation as to why countries such as Taiwan are 
rapidly rising in the high-technology world. Since 1984 Taiwan has made 
steady increases in their investments in the building of science based 
research parks. Hsinchu, their flagship science park, now has over 324 
high technology companies, generating over $22 billion annually in 
gross revenues, and employing a high technology work force exceeding 
100,000. This science park is bounded by two universities and contains 
six national laboratories. Taiwan is now building science parks in the 
middle and south of the island to concentrate on other fields such as 
nanoscience, optoelectronics, and biotechnology. These parks are the 
result of a number of carefully crafted government policies and 
incentives dealing with taxes, real estate, and fundamental research. 
In the area of technology transfer, the Taiwan government helped set up 
the world famous Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) which 
has over 5,000 scientists working to spin out laboratory ideas across 
the ``valley of death'' into new industries. Remarkably, the two chip 
foundry companies which now control 70 percent of the world's foundry 
market were launched from ITRI. As a result of this rapid economic 
growth, Taiwan's technical universities are now world class with their 
own excellent graduate programs. The reason they are side-by-side with 
these large science parks is to supply a steady stream of talented 
researchers.
  Recently, our National Academy of Sciences noted in its report, 
``International Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars,'' that 
Taiwan's domestic economic growth has led to fewer Taiwanese students 
applying to U.S. graduate schools. For the past two decades, Taiwan's 
students were the core supply of talent in our innovative science and 
engineering graduate school programs. Of equal concern, the successful 
Taiwanese scholars who attended graduate school in the United States 20 
or 30 years ago are now returning home and giving back their

[[Page S6313]]

professional wisdom to advance on their birth country's high-technology 
leadership.
  This same story holds true for India. My visit there this January 
yielded similar observations on their rapidly developing high 
technology sector. Since 1990, India has invested in the development of 
software and technology parks and currently has over 40 spread 
throughout the country. These parks were responsible for much of the 
high technology development in software and biotechnology. Indeed, 
multinational companies such as Intel, Microsoft and GE have built 
large research centers there to tap into the intellectual power 
educated at the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian 
Institute of Science. GE's Jack Welch R&D Center in Bangalore has 2,300 
Ph.D.'s conducting research in all aspects of their product lines. 
India's GE center now directs their plastics plant in Indiana on how to 
operate more efficiently in real time over the internet. Intel's 
research center has 2,000 product engineers designing the chips 
Americans will use in our computers and home entertainment centers next 
holiday season. The chips designed at Intel's Bangalore center are 
fabricated at their plant in Albuquerque. The tables have turned rather 
dramatically. We used to design the chips here and then they were 
manufactured overseas.

  When I visited Infosys, one of India's largest software companies, I 
was advised that in 2004 they received 1.2 million on-line employment 
applications, gave a standardized test to 300,000 job seekers 
interviewed 30,000, and then hired 10,000. They expect to repeat this 
same process again this year, which illustrates the deep pool of well 
trained talent that India has available. A number of the India's 
leading biotech entrepreneurs I visited with told me they weren't so 
much afraid of losing talent to the U.S. as they were to Singapore, 
with its burgeoning government investments in biotechnology.
  Similar to Taiwan, the National Academy report also documents a rapid 
drop in Indian student applications to U.S. graduate schools. India's 
rapidly developing economy encourages the best and brightest students 
to stay home and study in India rather than consider U.S. graduate 
schools. For the past 20 years, we have relied on this influx of the 
cream of the academic crop I from India and Taiwan to form the high-
tech startup companies of Silicon Valley.
  The stark question before us--whether it involves India, Taiwan, 
China, or Singapore is: are we missing the bigger picture? By the time 
we realize we have a problem in innovation and our investments in 
science and engineering investments, will it be too late? Will these 
Pacific Rim countries have climbed past us up the value chain, and will 
they be able to produce equally innovative high technology product at 
far cheaper costs?
  The bill I am introducing today, may be small, but the consequences 
are enormous. This measure proposes to authorize a capability in the 
office of the Science Advisor to the Secretary of State to conduct 
assessments of the science and technology capabilities in other 
countries such as India, China and Taiwan.
  The director of this office will report to the Secretary of State's 
Science Advisor. The office will to the maximum extent possible utilize 
firms that can conduct science and technology assessments in the 
country of interest to minimize and augment the federal staff. That is 
why I have proposed giving the office generous contracting authorities 
with respect to soliciting contracts and disbursing funds so that it 
may move quickly to gather information on certain topics so that we as 
a nation are not caught by surprise by an advance in a high technology 
area.
  Additionally, this legislation authorizes a Foreign Science and 
Technology Assessment Panel whose purpose is to look over the horizon 
and choose topics and technologies to assess, as well as to evaluate 
the timeliness and quality of the reports generated. These reports are 
to be publicly available, benefiting not only our government by 
ensuring the nation's leadership in science and engineering, but also 
our private sector, especially those high technology firms that must 
successfully compete in a fierce global market. The panel members, to 
be selected by the Secretary of State in consultation with the Director 
of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, will be distinguished 
leaders who have expert knowledge about our competitors' capabilities 
in science and technology.
  High technology moves at a rapid rate, and every sign I picked up 
from my science and technology trips to China, India, Taiwan and Japan 
indicates to me that our government seems to be asleep at the switch 
here at home with regard to understanding how quickly these countries 
are moving up the value chain from simple manufacturing to sustained 
efforts in science and engineering that matches if not exceeds us in 
the innovation cycle. This bill, while a small step forward, will serve 
to ensure that we constantly assess where other countries are in that 
value chain and to make sure we are doing everything possible to 
maintain our leadership in fields of high technology.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1211

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Foreign Science and 
     Technology Assessment Act of 2005''.

     SEC. 2. OFFICE OF FOREIGN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT.

       (a) Establishment.--There is established within the 
     Department of State an Office of Foreign Science and 
     Technology Assessment.
       (b) Director.--The head of the Office shall be a Director, 
     who shall be the Science Advisor to the Secretary of State.
       (c) Purpose.--The purpose of the Office shall be to assess 
     foreign science and technologies that have the capability to 
     cause a loss of high technology industrial leadership in the 
     United States.
       (d) Operation.--In preparing an assessment of science and 
     technology for a foreign country, the Director shall utilize, 
     to the extent feasible, United States entities capable of 
     operating effectively within such foreign country.
       (e) Availability of Assessments.--The Director shall make 
     each assessment of foreign science and technology prepared by 
     the Office available to the public in a timely manner.
       (f) Authorities.--In order to gain access to technical 
     knowledge, skills, and expertise necessary to prepare an 
     assessment of foreign science and technology, the Secretary 
     of State may utilize individuals and enter into contracts or 
     other arrangements to acquire needed expertise with any 
     agency or instrumentality of the United States, with any 
     State, territory, possession, or any political subdivision 
     thereof, or with any person, firm, association, corporation, 
     or educational institution, with or without reimbursement, 
     and without regard to section 3709 of the Revised Statutes 
     (41 U.S.C. 5) or section 3324 of title 31, United States 
     Code.

     SEC. 3. FOREIGN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT PANEL.

       (a) Establishment.--The Secretary of State shall establish 
     a Foreign Science and Technology Assessment Panel.
       (b) Purpose.--The purpose of the Panel shall be to provide 
     advice on assessments performed by the Office of Foreign 
     Science and Technology Assessment, including review of 
     foreign science and technology assessment reports, 
     methodologies, subjects of study, and the means of improving 
     the quality and timeliness of the Office.
       (c) Membership.--The Panel shall consist of 5 members who, 
     by reason of professional background and experience, are 
     specially qualified to provide advice on the activities of 
     science and technology in foreign countries as such 
     activities apply to the United States.
       (d) Appointment.--The Secretary of State, in consultation 
     with the Director of the Office of Science and Technology 
     Policy in the Executive Office of the President, shall 
     appoint the panel members.
       (e) Term.--A member shall be appointed to the Panel for a 
     term of 3 years.
       (f) Authority to Accept Services.--Notwithstanding section 
     1342 of title 31, United States Code, the Secretary of State 
     may accept and employ voluntary and uncompensated services 
     (except for reimbursement of travel expenses) for the 
     purposes of the Panel. An individual providing such a 
     voluntary and uncompensated service may not be considered a 
     Federal employee, except for purposes of chapter 81 of title 
     5, United States Code, with respect to job-incurred 
     disability and title 28, United States Code, with respect to 
     tort claims.

     SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be 
     necessary to carry out this Act.
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