> home
> About
> Contact Us
> Editorial Info
> IEEE-USA

06.10

By IEEE-USA Staff   

In a bit of political drama in three acts, the U.S. House of Representatives successfully passed the once bi-partisan American COMPETES Act before departing Washington for its Memorial Day break.

Inspired by the National Academy’s “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report outlining the global challenges to U.S. technological competitiveness, the landmark America COMPETES legislation put federal investments for civilian R&D through the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology on a doubling path.  The bill was championed through Congress by Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), chair of the House Science and Technology Committee, and in the Senate by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).  President Bush signed it into law on 9 August 2007.

The original America COMPETES Act funding authorizations were limited to three years, requiring Congress to reauthorize the legislation in 2010.  Congress often limits major spending programs to a set number of years, so as to force legislators to review the aims and accomplishments of the programs periodically.

Act I – The Motion to Recommit

After a series of committee hearings and a mark-up that presaged many of the partisan issues, the new America COMPETES Act (H.R. 5115) came to the House floor on 12 May.  After working through 54 floor amendments over two days, many with strong bipartisan support, the House appeared to be on the brink of passing the underlying reauthorization bill on 13 May.  But then minority bill manager Ralph Hall (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the House Science and Technology Committee, approached the Speaker’s desk with a motion to recommit, a procedural motion to send the bill back to committee with instructions to make nine specific changes.   According to Hall:

“The motion to recommit addresses the biggest concern I, and many of the [Republican] Members on this side of the aisle, have with the legislation, which is the excessive spending. It will address this issue by reducing the authorization to three years instead of five, striking the new programs in the bill, and reducing the spending down to the fiscal year 2010 appropriated levels. It also would prohibit Federal funds from being used by Federal employees to view, download, or exchange pornography, including child pornography. Additionally, it will ensure that the institutions that we're giving Federal funding to through this act will repay the Federal Government by allowing the military onto their campuses for recruitment.”

The motion was tailored to create a dilemma for the House Democratic majority. Republicans wanted to reduce the cost of the bill, but lacked the votes to defeat the Democrats on that issue.  So the Republicans included  an anti-pornography provision to create a politically impossible vote for the Democrats.  To move the bill forward, Democrats would have to vote against the motion to recommit.  But voting against a motion to ban federal workers from viewing pornography would not be politically popular, to say the least.  To drive this point home, Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) spoke in support of the motion, noting:

“This motion to recommit is simple. If you're a government employee, and you are disciplined for viewing, downloading, or e-mailing pornography, including child pornography, on government computers or during work hours, you will no longer be paid. You will be fired. If you think a couple of days of suspension, a reprimand, a transfer is the right response when someone uses government computers to spread pornography, then vote against this motion. But if you think spreading pornography with a government computer is an act that should lead to dismissal, then vote for this motion. I urge a vote for this motion.”

Majority party bill manager Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) spoke against the motion, emphasizing the importance of the bill to the nation, and tried to hold the Democrats together by noting:

“Now let's get down to the heart of it. And quite frankly, it saddens me to have to go into this. I mean, it saddens me that when we look at our kids--I have a 9-year-old daughter, and what about her future? What about your family’s future? Oh, we're going to hide behind this little bit. We're going to gut this bill for this little bit. A few days ago there were some NSF employees who were watching pornography. Of course that was bad, and they were disciplined. Throughout the whole executive offices, there is filtering on that now. Nobody seriously thinks that we don't want to deal with pornography here.  For God’s sake.  And when it gets to the conference, we'll take care of that even more. Everybody raise your hand that’s for pornography. Come on, raise your hand. Nobody? Nobody is for pornography? Well, I'm shocked. So I guess we need this little bitty provision that means nothing; that's going to gut the entire bill. This is an embarrassment, and if you vote for this, you should be embarrassed.”

In the final analysis, however, the political risk was too great and 121 Democrats broke party ranks to support for the motion to recommit, which passed by a 292 to 126 vote.  Only one Republican voted against the motion, U.S. Representative Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.), a physicist and long-time member of the House Science & Technology Committee, who had already announced he would not be seeking re-election. 

In the aftermath, Rep. Gordon expressed his disappointment “that politics trumped good policy. The Minority was willing to trade American jobs and our nation’s economic competitiveness for the chance to run a good political ad. “ Rep. Hall gave it a different spin, noting that “I remain committed to the underlying goals of the America COMPETES Act and believe that we should continue to prioritize investments in basic research and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education,” said Ranking Member Hall.  “However, this bill spends too much money and goes far beyond the original intent and scope of the COMPETES legislation.”

Act II – Suspension of the Rules

Within days of the House vote on H.R. 5115, Chairman Gordon revised and reintroduced the America COMPETES Act as H.R. 5325.  The new bill was based on the previous bill as amended by the House, with two additions.  To address Republican concerns about the total cost, the bill reduced the authorization period from five to three years. The new bill also included language from the Motion to Recommit banning the use of authorized funds to pay the salary of federal employees disciplined for looking at pornography at work.

Gordon worked with Democratic leaders to bring it directly to the House floor on 19 May under a suspension of the rules.  This procedure allows the House to consider the bill but prohibits any floor amendments.  Passage, however, requires a two-thirds affirmative vote of the House. 

In introducing the new bill, Rep. Gordon noted “I understand the concern of many of my colleagues about the overall size of a five year authorization, and this reduction is my sincere attempt at compromising on an issue that is very important to me. The bill before us today includes an overall funding reduction of almost 50 percent from H.R. 5116, as introduced.”

Gordon also noted that over 750 organizations endorsed reauthorization of COMPETES, including IEEE-USA,  the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, the Council on Competitiveness, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the National Venture Capital Association, TechAmerica, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and over 100 other associations, universities and colleges.

Hall responded:  “While I remain committed to the underlying goals of the America COMPETES Act, the bill before us today continues to take us in a much more costly direction and authorizes a number of new programs which have little to do with prioritizing investments in basic science, technology, engineering, and math research and development.”  He added: “The Republican motion to recommit kept all existing programs at fiscal year 2010 appropriated levels. Given that our Nation’s debt is currently $13 trillion and our Nation’s budget deficit has increased 50 percent in three years, it’s prudent to put the brakes on significant increases in spending for years to come.”

With Democrats holding 255 of the 432 voting positions currently seated in the House of Representatives, Gordon would need at least 30 Republicans to break ranks and support passage under suspension of the rules.  He got 15.   The final vote was 261 to 148, split along party lines, with 8 Democrats and 14 Republicans not voting.

Why bring a bill to the floor under a suspension of the rules with a two-thirds approval requirement when voting on America COMPETES had clearly taken a partisan turn?  Washington insiders were quick to note that the Democrats were forcing Republicans to choose between sticking to the party line or supporting a bill that was being tracked and scored by the National Association of Manufacturers and other key business groups as a key vote.  In other words, vote against America COMPETES and you hurt your “business-friendly” rating, which is often used to make decisions about campaign contributions and which is cited by many incumbent candidates as a qualification when running for reelection.

Act III – Dividing the Question

On 28 May, the Friday before the start of Congress’ Memorial Day district work period, Rep. Gordon brought the original COMPETES bill (with the amendments that had been approved back on 12 May and 13 May)  back to the House floor at 1:54 p.m. for the vote needed to implement the Motion to Recommit.  He immediately asked for a division of the question, which allowed Democrats to vote on each of the nine instructions in the motion instead of the entire package. 

Using their majority status, the Democrats rejected seven of the nine instructions, including the instruction to reduce the reauthorization period from five to three years, while supporting the politically-sensitive anti-pornography  and military recruiters on campus provisions.  That set the stage for a final vote on the amended legislation, with 17 Republicans joining the Democratic majority to pass COMPETES by a 260 to 150 vote.

The Finale?

With the bill now moving to the Senate for consideration, partisan lines have been drawn on what was once truly a bipartisan effort originated during the Bush Administration to enhance U.S. technological competitiveness.  With strong support from the business and technology community, Democrats are championing America COMPETES as an important investment in American innovation that will generate jobs and help fuel economic recovery. Taking their cue from voter unrest about the economy and the mounting federal deficit, Republicans are characterizing the bill as excessive spending contributing to an out-of-control federal deficit that will bring down the economy. 

In a press release issued after House passage of the COMPETES bill, Rep. Gordon attempted to downplay the budget issues, noting “throughout the Committee process, there was a lot of legitimate discussion about federal deficits. I agree that we must address the challenges presented by our deficits, but we must also invest in our country’s future. I remember Newt Gingrich saying one of his greatest regrets was not doubling the funding for NSF when he put NIH on the doubling path.”  He also noted that the bill’s original authorization levels had been cut by over 10 percent during committee consideration.

 “I am disappointed that my Democratic colleagues resorted to using a procedural tactic to defeat Republican changes that would have saved over $40 billion and restored the original COMPETES priority of basic research,” responded Rep. Hall.  “While I am glad we were finally able to reauthorize many of the important research and education program in this bill, the bill that passed today spends too much money, authorizes duplicative programs, and shifts focus away from the bill’s original intent.”

As the bill moves across the Hill, the Senate will be forced to deal not only with the budget politics of COMPETES, but also historical disagreements between the parties on the proper role of the federal government in supporting innovation. 

Democratic proponents are advocating both strong investments in basic research and a more proactive federal role to drive technology innovation and commercialization by the private sector.

Republican opponents consistently argue for a sharper focus on basic research.  For example, one of the proposed instructions in the House called for removal of a controversial Innovation title authorizing establishment an Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Department of Commerce, promoting the development of regional innovation clusters, and authorizing federal loan guarantees to help small and medium sized manufacturers with the use or production of innovative technology.

Party divisions aside, America COMPETES has strong supporters in the Senate and prospects for final passage before Congress adjourns this Fall are considered favorable.

For more information on the America COMPETES Act and to follow its progress through Congress, visit IEEE-USA’s Innovation Policy webpage at: http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/issues/innovation/index.html

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.