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WASHINGTON -Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) lauded last night's Senate passage of a bi-partisan innovation plan that he and others drafted and introduced in the Senate last month. The America Competes Act, which passed by a vote of 88-8, invests in research and education to improve the competitiveness of the United States in the global economy.
"We must continue to encourage the groundbreaking experimentation and longer-term outlook that made this country great," Lieberman said. "I am pleased to join my colleagues in this bipartisan effort to address the research, science, technology and education needs that will fuel innovation and continue to drive American growth and prosperity."
In 2005, Lieberman joined Senator John Ensign (R-NV) in introducing the National Innovation Act to ensure the United States remains the lead in innovation, research and development and the training of scientists and engineers. Last year, Lieberman and Ensign also proposed the National Innovation Education Act. These bills sought to substantially increase research investment; strengthen educational opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics from elementary through graduate school; and develop an innovation infrastructure. Many aspects of these bills were incorporated into the America Competes Act.
Among other things, the America Competes Act addresses the issue of improving our talent base by expanding programs that will produce more teachers prepared to teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and AP courses, improve alignment so that high school graduates have the skills necessary to succeed in college, increase support for graduate studies in STEM fields, and support teacher professional development. The bill also expands the Tech Talent program, which Lieberman first proposed in 2001 as part of the Technology Talent Act, which provides competitive grants to undergraduate institutions to develop new methods of increasing the number of students earning degrees in science, math, and engineering.
The bill also doubles research funding for National Science Foundation (NSF) over five years and the Department of Energy's Office of Science over ten years. In addition, it creates an "Innovation Acceleration Research Program" to stimulate transformational research by setting a goal for federal research agencies to allocate 8 percent of their current R&D budgets to breakthrough research - the kind of research that created fiber optics, the Internet and countless other technologies relied on every day in this country and around the world.
"Through our investments and leadership in basic research and innovation, we ensure that our children and grandchildren will continue to have the unprecedented prosperity and opportunity that we enjoy today," Lieberman said.
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