    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 22, 1993]
    [Pages 1801-1803]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Technology Reinvestment Project
    October 22, 1993

        Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. General Short, Admiral
    Pelaez, Dr. Alam, Dr. Dinis, Senator Mitchell and distinguished Members
    of Congress. And let me say a special word of thanks to my good friend,
    Senator Bingaman, and to Pat Schroeder, for the work they have done on
    this.
        When I started running for President, one of the core ideas that
    animated my campaign and that got me really committed to the long
    endeavor of 1992 was the commitment that we had to find a way as we
    built down defenses to build up a new economy for America with new
    partnerships between defense technologies and the commercial future that
    we all seek for our country.

    [[Page 1802]]

        I'd like to put this at least briefly into a larger context. All of
    you know we are living in a time when all the wealthy nations of the
    world are having great difficulty creating new jobs. We are now in the
    fifth year in which the average annual growth among the wealthiest
    nations has been under 2 percent. And as we look toward the future and
    we ask ourselves what is it that will regenerate the American economic
    engine in a new and highly competitive global economy in which
    technology and money and management are mobile, and in which many people
    in different parts of the world will do certain things for wages our
    people can't live on, it is perfectly clear that there are three things
    we have to do: We have to better educate and train our work force; we
    have to find new markets for our products and services; and we have to
    more rapidly develop new technologies, so that technology can continue
    to be what it has always been for our country and for the world, a net
    job generator.
        We know that technologies reduce the number of people necessary to
    perform traditional services in everything from agriculture to
    manufacturing. But technology has historically been a net job generator
    because every time it's done that, it's opened up new ways for people to
    make a living.
        There are significant barriers to that today in this country and in
    all wealthy countries. The reason I believe so strongly in this project,
    and the reason I believe someday this will become an integral part of
    our economic policy, not just a way of converting from a defense to a
    domestic economy, is because we have to find a way to create more new
    applications for more new technologies more quickly so that we can
    create more jobs.
        I am very, very happy about this day, and I want to thank all of
    those who had anything to do with bringing it about. I also want to say,
    to echo the Vice President, that the first awards in our Technology
    Reinvestment Project were definitely made on the merits. They were made,
    not surprisingly, largely in areas that had large technological bases
    related to defense technology where people have suffered very greatly
    from cutbacks and are very aggressively looking for alternatives. That
    provided a big incentive for those folks to be very active in trying to
    build a new future. But that is, after all, I'm sure what Senator
    Bingaman had in mind and what the Congress had in mind in funding this
    program.
        If we're really going to guarantee the security of America--the
    national security of America--we have to be more economically secure. We
    have to invest in projects that will create these jobs with new ideas
    and new technologies. That is the only way, I believe, to keep our
    Nation strong.
        This effort responds to two challenges left in the wake of the end
    of the cold war. The first is that you simply can't leave the men and
    women who won the cold war out in the cold. It is wrong to walk away
    from them. From southern California to Long Island to Connecticut, there
    are communities, companies, and employees who've depended on defense who
    now are desperately looking for new ways to make a living. And they can
    help to make America the strongest country in the world, economically,
    even into the 21st century.
        The second challenge we have is one that is often ignored, but must
    not be. And that is to meet our continuing military needs in a world
    which still contains dangers to our interests, our values, our security
    in a time when we may and we want to spend a smaller percentage of our
    national income every year on defense but when we know we still have to
    maintain our lead in defense technologies. So this effort really not
    only helps us to create new jobs in the civilian sector, it is very good
    for traditional national defense concerns.
        The purposes we are promoting are illustrated by the projects that
    are being supported today. And let me just mention a couple of them. A
    California-based team is seeking to demonstrate how advanced composite
    materials developed for high-performance military aircraft can offer
    major advantages for repairing and replacing our Nation's aging bridges.
    I have seen some of the preliminary work on a recent trip to southern
    California. It's a very, very impressive idea, with enormous potential
    in a Nation like the United States which has woefully neglected its
    infrastructure for 15 or 20 years now, and which has a huge number of
    bridges which desperately need repairing.
        This technology will also help the Army Corps of Engineers build
    lightweight and mobile bridges in combat situations or following natural
    disasters such as the one we recently had in the Midwest flood, where so
    many bridges were wiped out and so many working people were literally
    cut off from their jobs or faced four-

    [[Page 1803]]

    hour one-way drives just to get to their jobs.
        Another example: A small defense firm is adapting its pyrotechnic
    technology for use in emergency rescue equipment. You might ask, ``How
    can you have explosive technology used in rescue?'' Most people are
    rescued from that. [Laughter] This effort can, nevertheless, create a
    whole new generation of jaws-of-life rescue devices that can save time
    by making hydraulic equipment much easier to operate. The reductions in
    weight and cost will make these devices available even to small rescue
    teams.
        I can tell you as a former Governor of a State with a lot of rural
    communities, I spent an enormous amount of time just trying to figure
    out how to get this kind of equipment out to people and then how to make
    sure there were people there trained to use it. This could be a very
    significant thing in managing traumatic situations in rural communities,
    especially those that are isolated. By commercializing this technology
    we'll help to preserve a part of the pyrotechnic industry that is
    important to our Nation's defense, as well as solving the problems of
    Americans here at home.
        We're working with a team of companies and research labs to
    determine how the high-powered lasers that have been developed for the
    military can be adapted to make civilian products. The technology will
    offer higher precision and greater tooling speeds. This can help
    American industries from automobiles to aerospace, agricultural
    equipment, electronics, ship building, all these industries compete and
    win around the world. And after more than a decade in which our machine
    tools have suffered significant setbacks in the global economy, this
    offers a real chance for us to take back a significant sector of
    international trade.
        We're also supporting retraining programs for scientists, engineers,
    and other defense workers all across the country, in Alabama, Arizona,
    California, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and
    Washington. Our world is being transformed by technological, economic,
    and political change. This project is a part of our overall strategy in
    this administration to make those changes our friend instead of our
    enemy.
        Whether we're cutting the national deficit or investing in a whole
    new education and training program, or reforming the welfare system, or
    providing health security, or expanding trade, we know that all these
    things have to be done if we're going to really allow the American
    people to live up to the fullest of their potential.
        We're working hard here in the Government to set an example, under
    the Vice President's leadership, to give this reinventing Government
    effort a technological twist that maybe some of you ought to contribute
    to also in this project. And we want to set an example, but we also want
    to help lead the country to make the changes that will help us all to
    change our lives for the better.
        We know that doing nothing is not an option. And I want to say in
    closing that this is one idea that has really caught on with the
    Congress. I think because of the debates that have been held over the
    last couple of years and because of the pressures that have been brought
    to bear in areas all across America, from the dislocations, the painful
    dislocations, from defense cuts, there's a real commitment. And I want
    to thank the Congress here that even in the closing days in our debates
    over the budget, when we have cut and cut and cut so many areas, this
    program was dramatically increased for next year so that we can maintain
    the pace of these projects. And I hope we'll be able to increase it
    year-in and year-out as long as there are new ideas, new technologies,
    new jobs, and new movement for the American economy.
        Thank you all very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:47 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive
    Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Lt. Gen. Alonzo E.
    Short, Jr., USA, Director, Defense Information Systems Agency; Rear Adm.
    Marc Pelaez, USN, Chief of Naval Research; M. Kathleen Alam, technical
    staff member, Sandia National Laboratories; and Antonio Dinis, president
    and chief executive officer, J. Muller International.