[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 11, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H1191-H1193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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SUPPORTING THE GOALS AND IDEALS OF NATIONAL ENGINEERS WEEK
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and
agree to the resolution (H. Res. 117) supporting the goals and ideals
of National Engineers Week, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The text of the resolution is as follows:
H. Res. 117
Whereas engineers use their professional, scientific, and
technical knowledge and skills in creative and innovative
ways to fulfill society's needs;
Whereas engineers have helped meet the major technological
challenges of our time--from rebuilding towns devastated by
natural disasters to designing an information superhighway
that will speed our country into the future;
Whereas engineers are a crucial link in research,
development, and demonstration and in transforming scientific
discoveries into useful products, and we will look more than
ever to engineers and their knowledge and skills to meet the
challenges of the future;
Whereas engineers play a crucial role in developing the
consensus engineering standards that permit modern economies
and societies to exist;
Whereas the 2006 National Academy of Sciences report
entitled ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'' highlighted the
worrisome trend that fewer students are now focusing on
engineering in college at a time when increasing numbers of
today's 2,000,000 United States engineers are nearing
retirement;
Whereas the National Society of Professional Engineers
through National Engineers Week and other activities is
raising public awareness of engineers' significant, positive
contributions to societal needs;
Whereas National Engineers Week activities at engineering
schools and in other forums are encouraging our young math
and science students to see themselves as possible future
engineers and to realize the practical power of their
knowledge;
Whereas National Engineers Week has grown into a formal
coalition of more than 70 engineering, education, and
cultural societies, and more than 50 major corporations and
government agencies;
Whereas National Engineers Week is celebrated during the
week of George Washington's birthday to honor the
contributions that our first President, a military engineer
and land surveyor, made to engineering; and
Whereas February 15 to 21, 2009, has been designated by the
President as National Engineers Week: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) supports the goals and ideals of National Engineers
Week and its aims to increase understanding of and interest
in engineering and technology careers and to promote literacy
in math and science; and
(2) will work with the engineering community to make sure
that the creativity and contribution of that community can be
expressed through research, development, standardization, and
innovation.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee.
General Leave
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks
and to include extraneous material on H. Res. 117, the resolution now
under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Tennessee?
There was no objection.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
I rise in support of House Resolution 117, supporting the goals and
ideals of National Engineers Week. And I would first like to thank my
colleague, Mr. Lipinski from Illinois, for introducing this resolution.
As one of the only handful of engineers in Congress, Mr. Lipinski has
and will continue to be a strong advocate for engineers and engineering
on the Science and Technology Committee and here in the Congress.
As the sponsor of the bill, I now yield the balance of my time to the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
Illinois will control the time.
There was no objection.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding, and I
rise today in support of H. Res. 117, supporting the goals and ideals
of the National Engineers Week.
As an engineer, I am proud to sponsor this resolution again honoring
National Engineers Week, and I would like to thank the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) for working with me on this resolution and on so
many other important issues. Mr. Ehlers and I are the cochairs of the
STEM Ed, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Caucus. STEM Ed
is really critical to the future of our country and the future of
American technology and leadership in the world. And promoting STEM Ed,
especially in engineering, is a big part of what National Engineers
Week is all about.
I want to begin by sharing a few statistics: Three hours, 44 percent,
and 45,000 teachers. Three hours is the average amount of weekly
science instruction currently received by early elementary school
students in the United States, 3 hours; 44 percent of districts cut the
time devoted to elementary science education since the enactment of No
Child Left Behind; and, at the end of 2000, the last year that we have
good statistics for, 45,000 math and science teachers left the teaching
profession.
Couple these statistics with the projection that, by 2012, about 46
percent of all engineering jobs could become vacant due to retirement
by the aging workforce, and it becomes clear we need a renewed emphasis
on educating and exciting America's youth about engineering and
science.
Next week is the 18th annual Engineers Week, a week which features
events aimed at educating youth and fostering public awareness about
the vital contributions made by engineers to our quality of life and
our economic prosperity. Through programs like the Future City
Competition, Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, and the first
robotics competition, the National Engineers Week Foundation confronts
the challenge of plugging the leaky pipeline and encouraging more
students to pursue careers in engineering. We lose far too many
students through this leaky pipeline, and we are not producing enough
engineers right now through our educational system.
Engineers Week comprises numerous events. For example, students learn
the value of teamwork as they work in groups to develop creative and
practical solutions to some of the most important problems facing our
world. Projects like designing future cities make engineering come
alive for students, planting a seed that can lead to further studies or
a career in engineering. Indeed, research shows that children's early
experiences with science and engineering are a stronger prediction of
long-lasting interest in science fields than aptitude tests.
I can attest that my own childhood experiences with science and
engineering captivated me. As a child growing up in Chicago, I was
fascinated with figuring out how mechanical devices worked. I remember
that my high school calculus and physics teachers at St. Ignatius,
Father Thul and Father Fergus, were the ones who helped mold this
childhood fascination into an interest in engineering.
As a child, I also remember going to the Museum of Science and
Industry. I
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remember touring the coal mine exhibit. I remember seeing the enormous
train set teaching about trains and setting out the tracks and about
how locomotives work. I remember all the exhibits there, and how much
that excited and captivated me. And all these experiences instilled in
me the knowledge, confidence, and intellectual curiosity needed to
pursue an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at
Northwestern University and then a master's degree in engineering from
Stanford. One of the central goals of National Engineers Week is to
provide this kind of inspiration for the next generation of students.
Engineers have played a critical role throughout our history, and
there are numerous challenges facing our world that require immediate
engineering solutions, including developing American energy
independence, finding solutions to confront global climate change, and
making our Nation more secure. We need to make sure that our country
remains capable of designing, planning, and building these projects. We
need to help grow the next generation of talent by removing the social,
educational, and economic barriers that deter young students from
careers in engineering and technology. Now more than ever we need to
recognize the many contributions that engineers have made to our
country and the role that they must continue to play if we are to
remain competitive in an increasingly connected global economy.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to again thank the gentleman from Michigan
(Mr. Ehlers), I would like to thank Ranking Member Hall, as well as the
37 other cosponsors of H. Res. 117. I would like to especially thank
the engineers who have contributed so much to America. I urge my
colleagues to pass this resolution.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 117 supports the goals and
ideals of National Engineers Week, which will be celebrated this year
in just a few days, starting on February 15.
The National Society of Professional Engineers established one of
America's oldest professional outreach efforts, National Engineers
Week, in the year 1951.
During this week coming up, a wide range of activities are planned in
order to increase the understanding of and the interest in engineering
and technology careers, and to promote K-12 literacy in math and
science. Among these activities is the Future City competition, which
has engaged more than 30,000 middle school students in more than 1,000
schools across the Nation to tackle water conservation issues. The
finals for this competition will be held during National Engineers
Week.
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is another activity during the
week, intended to help spark enthusiasm for science and engineering in
our daughters and our granddaughters. Currently, less than 20 percent
of engineering undergraduates are women, and only 10 percent of our
professional engineering workforce is women.
These activities and many others will also highlight the
contributions that engineers have made to our society. The innovation
path that our country has trail blazed would not be possible without
the work of engineers. From designing satellites to help us predict the
weather to creating bandages that don't hurt when you pull them off,
engineers play a role in nearly every facet of our lives. It is
essential that we capitalize on opportunities such as National
Engineers Week to raise awareness of the valuable work and
contributions of engineers to society, and to attract young people of
all ages to this very rewarding profession.
I commend the corporate sponsors of the week, who recognize that
their future depends on our engineers of tomorrow. I support the goals
and ideals of National Engineers Week, and I urge my colleagues to join
me in this support.
National Engineers Week Corporate Sponsors
3M; Bechtel Group Foundation; Bentley; Boeing; BP;
CH2MHill; Conoco Phillips; DuPont; ExxonMobil; Fluor;
Hitachi; IBM; Intel; Lockheed Martin; Motorola; Northrop
Grumman; Raytheon's Math Moves; Rockwell Collins; Symantec.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Rogers).
Mr. ROGERS of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I commend the House today for
taking up the important issue of engineers.
I was talking just recently in my district in Michigan; we are hit
incredibly hard, 11 percent unemployment and growing.
A single mom, college educated, lost her job. She was a marketing
manager for a large retailer, went to work for a small cafe. She found
out last week her hours are being cut because they didn't have enough
traffic. It is pretty difficult for her to even make ends meet. We just
got an announcement that 10,000 General Motors white collar employees
will be out by May 1. Some of them will be engineers. It is incredibly
devastating.
And when you think about what we are talking about today and how
important it is laid over the fact that we are having a discussion
about the most massive spending bill in the history of the United
States, these people are hurting. And if I could for just one minute
look in their eyes and say, ``This is the bill that will save you and
your children's future,'' I could be on board. But what we are telling
them is that it is more important for fancy golf carts here for
bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., billions of dollars spent in this
town, in this town, when people living in places like Lansing and
Howell and Brighton, Michigan, and Holt are fighting to keep their jobs
today.
And, by the way, I am going to have to go to that eighth grade class
and say, you know, we are going to go to the market for the first time
in American history with something on the order of $2.6 trillion. And
do you know what that means for you? Maybe you can't get a loan for a
car that you would like to buy some day. You probably will be crowded
out when you are trying to get a student loan, or paying maybe double
digit, close to 20 percent interest. Your milk will be more expensive,
your bread will be more expensive. And, guess what. We will have the
most massive debt in the United States history to show for it.
So if we want to encourage people to go into engineering, and I think
we should, we ought do smart things. And, oh, by the way, something
else in this bill for our engineers.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. HALL of Texas. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman.
If you do really great stuff and you innovate our way out of this
problem and we start using less energy and become more energy
independent, guess what. In this bill, it says: Utility companies, to
make up the difference, you can charge your customers more.
So you know what, people who are losing their job, go out and buy
really fancy light bulbs that save you money. And when you do, the
utility gets to come in and charge you more for your electricity.
This is a sham and it is unconscionable what we are doing to real
working Americans. I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we would take a
moment to stop and think about the people that we are impacting. This
isn't about a political victory. It is about people who right today are
getting pink slips from General Motors. Or maybe they already have, and
are hoping and praying that they will get a chance at a job in the
future.
This bill is wrongheaded. It is dangerous to the future of this
country. And we are telling our children: Guess what, we are sentencing
you to debtors prison, and foreign governments are going to be the
jailers. Good luck.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady
from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, you know, I find it amazing that we are
in the middle of a debate of a good resolution. We are all for
engineers. We like the innovation and the creativity that they bring
forward. But, Mr. Speaker, what we are faced with is, is this the
appropriate time for this type discussion? Or, is the time now to try
to read through this, let's see, 1,500 pages that we have had laid
before us? The spending bill that is masquerading under the title of
stimulus, when we are told by the Congressional Budget Office that, at
best, 10 percent of this bill would be spent this year?
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We know that stimulus is to be timely, it is to be targeted. But we
also know that this bill is going to spend money for 10 years. And I
will tell you what. It is of great concern to me that our children and
our grandchildren are the ones that are going to be paying for this,
because we are heaping on their head another $1.2 trillion. And that
doesn't include the interest, another $1.2 trillion of debt.
Now, I am told that this bill spends, per page, $1,206,185,569 per
page.
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That is how much is being spent in this legislation that has not gone
through regular order, that has not been debated. All the programmatic
spending that is in here, there is not time for that. And we are
hearing one of the reasons is because there are codels that are leaving
at 6 o'clock on Friday. Now a codel is a congressional delegation.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. HALL of Texas. I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. So because we have to hurry up and finish and get to
recess, we can't get inside the numbers and figure out what we're going
to do with this bill.
Now some of it we have found out, if you're into golf carts, there is
$300 million for green golf carts. We have also $125 million for sewers
in D.C. We have $500 million for NASA exploration activities. We have
$2 billion for FutureGen. We have $70 million for an energy-efficient
visitors centers program.
These are all items that may be worthy of standing on their own
merit. The problem is this is not a stimulus bill. It is a spending
bill. It has become the biggest pork barrel bill that we have ever
seen. It is full of special interest earmarks and favors that will go
to specific industries.
I urge everyone to vote ``no'' on this, and I urge us to take our
time to debate.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Oregon.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting
me to speak on this resolution as I appreciate his leadership in these
areas.
As I listened to my colleague a moment ago conclude her comments, one
could be confused a little bit about why we are here. We are here
celebrating the engineering profession. But it is interesting in the
context of stimulating the economy and rebuilding and renewing America
the role that our engineers have played. Just last week, the American
Society of Civil Engineers introduced their report card. Every 5 years
they provide a snapshot of the role that infrastructure plays in this
country. Last week, their report card graded infrastructure in the
United States as a D. And the gap of meeting the infrastructure needs
just for the next 5 years has increased from $1.6 trillion to $2.2
trillion.
I have appreciated over the years working with the engineering
profession. One of the most rewarding portions of my career was 10
years as Portland, Oregon's Commissioner of Public Works, where working
with people in the engineering profession to deal with long-term value,
environmental protection, and the infrastructure for transportation,
safety, environmental protection are invaluable.
For us to take a little time recognizing on the floor of the House
the role that this profession has played in helping us do our job, if
each Member of this body would spend time at home working with their
local engineers, thinking about the challenges that they face with
clean air, clean water and transportation in their own communities,
they would have greater confidence in coming back and supporting a
robust economic stimulus package, but one that deals with the future of
this country.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I hope that people take the time to listen to the men
and women who are working with local business and with local
governments to understand the fix that we are in. If we're ever going
to restore a robust economy and prepare with protecting the future of
the planet while we deal with the liveability of our communities now
and making our families safe, healthy and economically secure, it will
be in large measure because we're able to link with and to utilize the
power of this profession, people who are there working with us to try
and get it right.
So I rise in support of this resolution. I salute the engineers that
I have had the privilege to work with over the years. And I strongly
urge my colleagues not just to vote for the resolution, but to go home
and work with and listen to the engineers at home, because they have
got a prescription for restoring our economy, rebuilding America's
future and making all our families safer, healthier and more
economically secure.
Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield my neighbor from Louisiana
(Mr. Fleming) 2 minutes.
Mr. FLEMING. From my neck of the woods, north Louisiana, we have
quite a number of engineers. And right now I'm very concerned about
engineers because of our current economic situation. President Obama
just mentioned that his stimulus bill is better than no bill at all.
However, I have to point out that we Republicans have submitted H.R.
470, which is a far better version and far more stimulative. We talk in
increments of billions and trillions of dollars, $1 billion here, $100
million there. But I want to put a real face on the stimulus bill. A
few days ago, we were contacted by Michael Moss, a constituent. He is a
small business owner in Shreveport, Louisiana. Michael is 51. He owns a
financial services business that has been operating in our community
for over 30 years. Michael called and asked, where is the bailout for
his small business? Everybody else is getting a bailout. He employs six
hardworking Louisianans. And they work themselves to death. Also he
employs elderly parents who rely on him or his business for their
income. Michael doesn't own a jet plane. Yet he gets no bailout. He
owns a used Ford Explorer instead. He doesn't own a home. He merely
rents one. But he is still working his small business. He discussed the
stimulus package. And what he is saying is, look, the small businesses
are creating the jobs and need the help. Small businesses create jobs
so families have stable incomes in order to go out and spend. He
suggests, and I agree with him, that we need to expedite depreciation
schedules, eliminate capital gains tax and eliminate payroll deductions
immediately. Remember that we make plans based on what we expect our
tax situation to be, especially my fellow business owners. We know that
the tax returns are going to be there, and we go ahead and plan to
spend the money.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
We have no further requests.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Again, I urge and encourage support for this
bipartisan good bill and resolution.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) that the House suspend the rules
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 117.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. GORDON of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and
nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
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