[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 71 (Thursday, April 27, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H2077-H2081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        HONORING THE 44TH DISTRICT COURT JUDGE JAMIE WITTENBERG

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kean of New Jersey). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 9, 2023, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. 
Stevens) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of 44th District 
Court Judge Jamie Wittenberg, who passed away last winter after a 
courageous 3-year battle with brain cancer. Elected in 2008, Jamie was 
one of the youngest judges ever to be elected in Oakland County, 
Michigan.
  A Huntington Woods native and longtime Berkley resident, he attended 
Indiana University before graduating

[[Page H2078]]

from Wayne State Law school where he was a two-time recipient of the 
Leonard Gilman Scholarship. He served the State of Michigan honorably 
as a prosecutor in both Wayne and Macomb Counties prior to his 
election.
  During his many years on the bench, Judge Wittenberg doubled the size 
of the sobriety court and helped to establish a teen court, a diversion 
program to help keep juveniles out of the judicial system and build 
brighter futures.
  His family's world was upended over 3 years ago when he was diagnosed 
with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. No matter how 
daunting a diagnosis, Judge Wittenberg never complained. He never 
complained. He faced his cancer head-on by undergoing numerous 
surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. He remained in a state of 
ketosis. He far exceeded his original prognosis, handling a full court 
docket the entire time.
  Judge Wittenberg was a respected and admired jurist who was a fixture 
of our southeast Oakland County community in Michigan. He was a mentor 
to countless attorneys and respected by everyone who appeared before 
him in court, no matter what side of the issue they were on. He will be 
remembered as being deeply fair and compassionate.
  He is missed in our community, and this month he would have 
celebrated his 49th birthday. In addition to his beloved wife, Staci, 
Judge Wittenberg is survived by his four incredible daughters, Arielle, 
Talia, Brooke, and Maya, the lights of his life. He is survived by his 
parents, Mollie and Howard; his sister, Jodie; and, of course, his 
incredible brother, Robert Wittenberg who was sworn in by Judge 
Wittenberg as the Oakland County treasurer in just 2021.
  We know his memory will be a blessing. May his memory be a blessing, 
and may we join together in this Chamber to continue to push for a 
cure, to continue to push for investments in tackling the scourge that 
is glioblastoma.

                              {time}  1745


              Reflecting on State of U.S. Industrial Base

  Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to shift focus. I rise in this 
Congress reflecting on the state of the U.S. industrial base, 
reflecting as a Member of Congress from Michigan, as a Member of 
Congress who represents Oakland County, as a Member of Congress who 
lives in Oakland County, as a Member of Congress who represents 
Automation Alley, as someone who represents the largest concentration 
of automotive suppliers and, certainly, some of our automotive 
manufacturers, our original equipment manufacturers, as we like to call 
them.
  Nearly every week since I got elected to Congress, I participate in a 
program. I call it ``Manufacturing Monday,'' and I visit our small 
businesses, our small manufacturers, our mom-and-pop shops, often 
passed down from parent to child; manufacturers who have been through a 
whole lot; manufacturers who guided the passage of the USMCA, which was 
done before COVID ever entered our lexicon, to give the North American 
Continent a fair shot at competing, a framework to compete, a framework 
to sell our goods internationally.
  Export channels are phenomenal. They lead to revenues. They lead to 
productivity. People want to buy American products throughout the 
world. They recognize our flag. They recognize our craftsmanship.
  Then, in no short order, after we passed USMCA, renegotiating NAFTA, 
giving our manufacturers and our workers a leg up, of course, we were 
disrupted. We were disrupted by a global pandemic.
  In this very Chamber, as Members of Congress representing every ZIP 
Code throughout this Nation gathered to vote, gathered to respond to 
the charge of the time, people were tapping me on the shoulder. How are 
you doing this in Michigan so well? How are you responding to these 
supply chain disruptions? How do Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, 
otherwise sometimes known as Chrysler, know how to immediately act to 
these supply chain disruptions, sourcing masks, producing ventilators, 
finding out who has the specs and who doesn't?
  We kept working. We kept making. We stood up and responded to the 
industrial call to action of this very Nation, similar to how we did in 
the World War II era. It is in our very blood.
  By the way, Michiganders, we are a northern State. Spring hits later 
than here in the mid-Atlantic, where the Nation's Capital resides. We 
are full of grit. We are full of toughness. We have seen some tough 
times, but we know how to rise through challenges and how to stick to 
the knitting and stick to the good work, even when the times aren't 
easy.
  Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves in a very unique and interesting 
moment, yet again on the springboard of the remarkable passage of the 
CHIPS and Science Act that I was so proud to play a leading role in 
passing as the vice chair last term of the Science, Space, and 
Technology Committee and the subcommittee chair for the Research and 
Technology Subcommittee.
  $52 billion for chips manufacturing is not a platitude. It is a real 
investment in industrial policy in this Nation.
  Why do we need to invest in chip manufacturing? We innovated the 
microchip. We innovated the company called Intel. The late Gordon 
Moore, who we recently said good-bye to within the last 6 weeks, I 
believe, innovated that microchip alongside his fellow academics out in 
the Western part of this Nation. At one point, we were making 40 
percent of the chips, and then something happened. We got laissez-
faire. We forgot about what it means to have an industrial base in this 
country, taking it for granted.
  Of course, Mr. Speaker, I served very proudly in the administration 
of President Barack Obama when we were responding to the inherited 
crisis of the Great Recession, working on what was known as the auto 
rescue, the largest managed industrial bankruptcy in the history of 
this Nation of General Motors and then Chrysler, at the time selling 8, 
9 million cars globally a year. It is known as SAR, the indicator. It 
was unfathomable where we would be 12 years later, a dozen years later, 
at 16, 17 million SAR.
  We were talking about semiconductors. We were focusing on 
semiconductors. We were focusing on the minerals, not just the trade 
relationships, but the need to double down on manufacturing policy in 
the United States of America.
  Some of you might know that President Obama created the White House 
Office of Manufacturing Policy. He created what was then called the 
National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, now known as 
Manufacturing USA, about a dozen institutes in various research 
concentrations that exist throughout this Nation.
  One we boast about in Michigan is known as LIFT. We are very proud of 
our friends at LIFT. It used to be focused very specifically on 
lightweight materials. Now, they are in a variety of spaces and joined 
with The Composites Institute doing R&D, doing workforce training, 
smaller scale.
  We must look bigger. I am on the select committee, very proudly, 
serving under Chair   Mike Gallagher, also from the Midwest, from 
Wisconsin, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between 
the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
  We are so dependent. We are so dependent on foreign markets. We want 
to sell to those markets, but when the pandemic hit our shores and you 
can't get the masks, and you can't get your manufacturing supply chains 
going because you outsourced it all, it is a wake-up moment. It was a 
major wake-up moment for microchips and semiconductors in the United 
States of America.
  All of a sudden, very brilliantly, this very body, our Chamber, the 
House of Representatives, where all great ideas begin, we put forward a 
bill in partnership with our colleagues in the other Chamber, the 
Senate. It became the CHIPS and Science Act, $52 billion. We will talk 
about the number.

  Have we talked about what taxpayers spent, what is the return on that 
investment? It is a $52 billion spend over half a decade. It was 
already signed into law in August 2022. It has already begat $200 
billion of private-sector investment.
  This is absolutely remarkable and brilliant. We are seeing these 
amazing microchip factories come into places across this country--Ohio, 
Arizona. We have Hemlock in Michigan.
  The challenge isn't over. We can't manufacture fast enough. It is not 
a light switch, complex manufacturing.

[[Page H2079]]

Fabricators for chips can't get a hair strand caught in them. You must 
suit up. You must be trained. You must be disciplined.
  We are focused on the workforce consideration, which is why I was 
delighted that my CHIPPING IN bill made it into the CHIPS and Science 
Act--$25 million to the National Science Foundation to invest in the 
workforce development and training for chips manufacturing.
  This is cause for celebration. It is also cause for reflection 
because this bill, in many respects, was a catch-up bill. We were 
catching up to where we needed to be--40 percent of chips manufacturing 
in the 1990s, down to 10, 12 percent in the 2020s.
  The tide rolls out. Cars are sitting in parking lots. 
Microelectronics industries are going haywire. Prices are going out of 
control. Then, people are wondering about China and Taiwan, why we have 
to get all of these chips from Taiwan, and what happens with the 
national security ramifications of this.
  We can't move fast enough. Now, as we are doing the work on the 
competitiveness committee to lessen our reliance on the CCP and to 
recognize that the American way of doing business, the Western way of 
doing business through free markets in democratic nations, must 
continue to succeed as we inch our way, not just into the quarter-21st 
century, but the mid-21st century, which will be here before we know 
it.
  What is our charge? We understand the trade relationship. We 
understand that, between 1985 and 2000, the U.S. trade deficit with 
China grew steadily from $6 billion to $83 billion, a trade deficit.
  The deficit ballooned after the Chinese Communist Party joined the 
World Trade Organization in 2001. It is standing at a very 
stratospheric level at $309 billion.
  When we look specifically at key industries, we see it here as well. 
I have already expounded on chips. We recognize there is still a 
weakness. We can't move fast enough. This is a call to action.
  I have briefly mentioned rare minerals, critical minerals. Somewhere 
between 85 and 92 percent of the refining capacity is taking place in 
China, taking place on behalf of the CCP.
  We don't want to be overly reliant. We want to focus on our trade 
relationships and our strategy.
  I cannot tell you all the hundreds of manufacturing visits I have 
made as a sitting Member of this Chamber, not going in with a fancy 
podium, not going in with the press. I have two ears and a notepad and 
a member from my team, and we are establishing relationships. So, we 
are geeking out. It is great to see the equipment in action, but there 
are supply chain vulnerabilities.
  There are supply chain gaps. We have gone through this with 
materials. Steel has gone haywire. We have tried to tariff. We are 
still paying high prices. We are glad that U.S. Steel is making money, 
finally.
  Tariffs aren't going to be a comprehensive industrial policy for the 
United States of America. We have to figure out how to strategically 
invest.
  We don't need to do it at the rate of our competitors who do 
everything--well, the one competitor in this case, the CCP that is top 
down. That is autocratic. That is state sponsored. We don't need to do 
it like that. We need to bring the private sector along.
  Sometimes, these key stakeholders are begging for the table of 
collaboration. I saw this at the research institute that I worked in 
about a decade ago that was a part of that national network for 
manufacturing innovation, the Industrial Internet of Things, large data 
stacks, bringing together competitor companies, research institutions, 
and States to co-invest to get access to R&D.
  We have to scale. That is what we have been doing. It is actually 
quite amazing.
  Now, we ask ourselves, what is next? How are we going to build 
batteries in the United States of America?
  A small startup in my district, located in Troy, Michigan, called 
Intecells, absolutely brilliant, making the batteries to go into the 
electric vehicle. Of course, that is what we mean now when we say 
``battery.'' We think of the electric vehicle, the sustainability 
charge, absolutely brilliant.
  Every Democrat in this Chamber, both House and Senate, joined 
together toward the end of the last term to pass the Inflation 
Reduction Act. Can you believe it?
  If you looked to last century, well, my goodness, you would never see 
the environmental groups and the automakers being on the same page, but 
they were on the same page with this one--zero emissions, making the 
sustainable vehicle.
  We did the bipartisan infrastructure bill. See, those who sit on this 
side of the Chamber can actually talk about our passage of the 
legislation.
  They do thank us a lot on the CCP committee for CHIPS and Science. It 
was bipartisan, I will give you that, but we could have gotten more.

                              {time}  1800

  We didn't get any on IRA. We got a few on the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law. I am always delighted when we can work together in 
a bipartisan way, and I don't mock when we can't.
  These are the things I am talking about that bring people together, 
our House Manufacturing Caucus, with Mr. Joyce. We have a Democratic 
task force that I run with Whip Clyburn on manufacturing: doing, 
delivering, and setting us up for success.
  Manufacturing is technology. Manufacturing is high-tech. 
Manufacturing is software engineering. Manufacturing is computer 
numerical controls machines and computer-aided design. We are doing 2D 
and 3D, and we are doing the printing and all that other good stuff, 
but we need to get access to the materials. We need to figure out why 
we are behind on batteries and not blame each other and not blame the 
manufacturers who just want to build this stuff here.
  I want the jobs here. I want the union jobs here. I want the lithium 
to come through good sources that we have access to, so we are not just 
hanging around and waiting and hoping that this comes in. Hydrogen is 
also a great opportunity for us.
  But here is the deal, folks. Fighting each other isn't going to 
change the reality that 80 percent of the manufacturing capacity of 
those batteries is done in China. It is not. But Intecells, when I 
first met with them several years ago, their CEO, Shawn, said to me: 
Stevens, we have got to make this here. We have got to do this here. We 
are losing this race.
  Now, some of these whiz kids at Stanford University, that the 
chairman of the committee brought us to, are working on technology 
readiness. They are working on technology indicators.
  Well, my automakers bring this to me: Who is doing what? Where are we 
in the spectrum? Here is where the U.S. is with the EU and the CCP and 
on.
  We are also very excited and energized by our trade partnership with 
India and what that might mean, democracies working together. I happen 
to represent a very large concentration of Indian Americans who came to 
this Nation by Ford, primarily, to engineer and help work on the autos.
  This is exciting. Let's continue to bring in high-skilled talent. Mr. 
Durbin has a bill. We would like to get this done. We can't be 
operating off of 20th century immigration policies as we try and 
function and compete in the 21st century.
  Some are chasing the glitz and glamour that comes with the job. I get 
it. They want attention. They want to raise dollars. I am not out here 
to attack anyone specifically. But our work is not just profound and 
tied to the great history of this very Chamber and this institution and 
all the things we need to do. No, Mr. Speaker, it is tied to the very 
charge of this century that we exist in, which is renovating our 
systems, focusing on the functionality and efficiency of government to 
best serve its stakeholders, the voter and the constituent. Period. End 
of story.
  Well, it is a heap. We have got healthcare entanglements and 
bureaucracies that we need to address. We have got infrastructure 
challenges ongoing that, again, a bipartisan infrastructure bill, which 
was catching us up to work on fixing roads. Governor Whitmer in 
Michigan is highly focused on this.
  Lead in the pipes. I have got pipe challenges in Oakland County, 
Michigan. I have got Royal Oak Township that has water costs through 
the roof. I have got Pontiac that had power outages like the rest of 
the county from

[[Page H2080]]

trees that we decided not to trim. Pontiac to West Bloomfield. We have 
got power outages for weeks on end in the innovation capital of the 
Midwest.
  So we have got to do the nitty-gritty, right? We have got to roll up 
our sleeves and do the stuff. I say this with all due respect, Mr. 
Speaker. That isn't always sexy, but it makes us work better. Then we 
can get in, and we will focus, and we are focusing. We are not going to 
wait.
  We parallel track our charge, we parallel track our effort, because 
artificial intelligence is here. This is maybe, in part, why I have a 
master's in philosophy and social policy, because it is raising 
unbelievable philosophical questions, artificial intelligence. It is 
not these gimmick podcasts that are just talking about falling in love 
with a robot or your kids doing homework with the AI chat. That is all 
interesting and disruptive.
  No, this is about systems. This is about systems of artificial 
intelligence in our Department of Defense, in our hospitals, that are 
making decisions about our everyday life.
  We need trust. As the vice chair of the Committee on Science, Space, 
and Technology, I chaired a hearing on artificial intelligence and 
bias. That is one leg of this. A regulatory framework would help. 
Continuing to invest would help. Continuing to lead, as we have in the 
United States of America, brilliantly, because we have the talent. We 
want the talent. We are in a global race for talent.
  Our universities of all stripes are really wonderful places to learn, 
educate, receive higher education, climb that ladder, produce that 
original research, and change the world. That is the only way we are 
going to succeed.
  We measure ourselves sometimes by how many Ph.D.s we have. How many 
people get to stay in America after they get that Ph.D., right?
  What are we losing out on because we haven't reformed?
  I have talked about the materials. I have talked about steel. I want 
to mention aluminum. We are very proud of both industries. We want to 
have more here in America. We want to be strong on the materials front. 
We also want to continue to work on advancing our charges in the 
composite space.
  I am also the originator of the House Plastic Solutions Task Force. 
Now, people get obsessed with the bottles, and the bottles need to be 
recycled. But plastic is in everything. It is in your clothes. It is in 
your shoes. It is in the chairs. We have got to think about better 
technologies to reuse.

  Interestingly, my manufacturers in Michigan have Reman, and I have 
introduced legislation called Reman Day to salute their work and to 
continue to encourage it. There is no incentive to remanufacture your 
steel or your aluminum, but many companies see a bottom line with it, 
which is great. Those in the plastics sector, from my chemical 
manufacturers to my back-end manufacturers, are saying: We have got to 
reuse this plastic. Plastic comes from oil, folks. We don't want to 
just keep sourcing that way. We can reuse it.
  We have got companies, startups, innovators, who are helping us 
better recycle plastic. But we also could look for other composites.
  I don't really think banning plastic straws and drinking out of 
plastic cups with plastic lids is solving the meta challenge. I would 
be keen to the conversation of which we have entered into in this body 
of thinking through a limitation of single-use plastics for better 
recycling. By the way, there are other composites and other materials 
we can use.
  Forvia, which is in my district, an auto supplier, is trying to 
minimize the plastic in the interior of the car to breathe healthier. 
That is what they are calling it. They are using hemp. I am not 
knocking anyone. I am just simply looking at solutions for us.
  I have introduced the last two terms in Congress a plastic recycling 
technology bill that has really been bipartisan, and Representative 
Troy Balderson has joined with me in that bill in the past. We have 
worked on that in the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. That 
is a great start, because in some ways we are naive to think about 
their durability and plastics going into all of our food and plastics 
going into all of our equipment and cell phones and our medical tests 
and things like that. But we have got to think forward in terms of how 
we are going to succeed.
  Here are some other bills that we would like to support in this 
Chamber, I would like to implore the support of my colleagues on.
  Passing the Manufacturing Guard Act. The Manufacturing Guard Act is a 
bill to shore up our supply chains and prevent future emergency 
disruptions.
  Some, when COVID hit our shores, were saying this is like a weather 
event that has disrupted a part of the world. No, that wasn't a weather 
event. It was a global challenge, and it was a sustained disruption. 
Cybersecurity attacks are the same way. Tsunamis are a part of this. We 
have got to better prepare.
  A bill I introduced last Congress, alongside Mr. Balderson, Senators 
Coons, Rubio, Hassan, and Cornyn, would establish an Office of Supply 
Chain Preparedness in the Department of Commerce. How delightful would 
that be, as we have gotten CHIPS and Science done.
  So they are cooking up a great team at Commerce under the great 
leadership of Secretary Gina Raimondo, who I would like to salute for 
her great effort and dedication to passing CHIPS and Science. I fully 
believe that the Department of Commerce could house such a supply chain 
preparedness office, working cohesively with the Department of Homeland 
Security. Mr. Ritchie Torres has a like bill along these lines which I 
endorse.
  Members of the manufacturing guard would advise the supply chain 
office, would run simulations, would test our systems.
  Where are we weak?
  Where do we need to implement technologies for supply chain 
visibility?
  We don't always know what's around the corner. We don't need to be 
afraid. Truman's wise words: America was not built on fear. America was 
built on courage, determination, and the willingness to do the job at 
hand.
  This is our American moment, industrial policy for the 21st century.
  Another bill that I would like to encourage my colleagues to support 
is the Promoting Digital Privacy Technologies Act. This is a great bill 
utilizing the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which we 
authorized and plussed up in CHIPS and Science and gave more energy to.
  By the way, NIST is playing a huge role in the CHIPS and Science Act. 
My privacy-enhancing technologies bill is going to direct the NSF to 
support competitive fundamental research on privacy-enhancing 
technologies. It's going to direct NIST to facilitate the development 
of standards and best practices for the integration of what we call 
PETs, privacy enhancing technologies, in the public and private sector 
to ensure that Americans continue to reap the rewards of data analysis 
while also protecting their most sensitive information.
  We don't need to jump in on hyper-regulation. But we can use Federal 
agencies like NIST and NSF, as we have seen them do since their origin, 
to serve as trustworthy and good partners with stakeholders from 
academia, industry, and the general public.
  We also have a great bill called the Shifting Forward Vehicle 
Technologies Research and Development Act. It is a total mouthful, but 
it is a great bill. I introduced it last Congress alongside my 
colleague from Michigan, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. That bill 
reauthorizes the Advanced Vehicle Technology Program for R&D at the 
Department of Energy.
  I don't like to skip over the fact that the CHIPS and Science bill 
that was passed and signed into law did a lot of great things for DOE. 
We are seeing a lot of nice manufacturing partnerships and engagements 
with the Department of Energy throughout this country.
  We are also seeing the Department of Energy being exercised as a 
critical part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, some of these 
early-stage grants that are going out for cell batteries and hydrogen 
in the hydrogen hubs.
  But my Shifting Forward Vehicle Technologies Research and Development 
Act supports research for improving vehicle batteries for extremely 
fast-charging and wireless charging capabilities and efficiencies to 
lower costs, exploring efficient use, substitution, and recycling of 
critical materials.
  Here we go again: Technology for recycling, thinking about how we can 
use

[[Page H2081]]

that approach for access to rare earth minerals or precious metals that 
are at risk of supply chain disruption, testing advanced battery safety 
protection systems for high-voltage power and heat and on.

                              {time}  1815


                       we must pass quantum bills

  Mr. Speaker, we know we have got to make a move on quantum. Quantum 
bills, there is kind of a nice package cooking out in the Science 
Committee.
  I am proud to share that in the last month I have served as the co-
lead, coauthor for two quantum bills. The Quantum Sandbox for Near-Term 
Applications Act, which I have done with my colleague Mr. Obernolte to 
establish a quantum sandbox through public-private partnerships focused 
on quantum applications and development for the acceleration of this 
technology.
  Supercomputers, quantum. We are always in a race with the CCP on who 
has the fastest supercomputer. Well, quantum has arrived. Quantum, like 
AI and like the supercomputers before it, are very expensive to run, 
very cumbersome, and very costly. How far does this go and how fast 
does it go?
  We want to have these technologies here. This is why in CHIPS and 
Science we encourage the National Science Foundation, and we said to 
them, you are now going to create a new directorate: technology, 
innovation, and partnerships. It is all in this vain.
  Mr. Speaker, I actually heard this from the Senate majority leader, 
Mr. Schumer, he said that we want to be leading in quantum.
  The Quantum in Practice Act, which includes quantum molecular 
simulations and modeling in the National Quantum Initiative Act. That 
is my other bill.
  The Science Committee is absolutely on the brink of taking up a 
reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act to support and 
expand quantum information science and technology research. It is a 
critical technology for the U.S. to remain a global leader on.
  Mr. Speaker, I have got a few closing points. One is a note of 
braggadocios. I boast in the great State of Michigan, the 10th largest 
State in the Union, and geographically the largest State east of the 
Mississippi, the most number of first robotic teams in the Union.
  We are engaging our students with the industry of the future. We are 
building. We are making. We are doing exciting workforce development. 
Those students are going on to skilled trades. Those students are going 
on to engineering. Those students are going on to communications to 
help us compete in these industries of the future.
  We must invest and lead in the development of the next generation of 
vehicles. That is what we are working on. We must have a robust 
investment in manufacturing and technology. I say investment as 
strategy. We have to do these things to win the future, and, most 
assuredly, we will do from the place that I call home, Michigan.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________