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Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007

Date: May 23, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Agriculture and Food Drugs


AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 23, 2006)

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Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I believe the gentleman from Arizona is really looking for savings in all the wrong places. To take just one example, the Medicare Advisory Commission has pointed out there is $50 billion, with a B, $50 billion in overpayments to Medicare Advantage, HMOs, and PPOs that could easily be drawn back. So that $50 billion is one place to look.

But these funds for scientific research are critically important, and I wanted to describe at the University of Maine the wood utilization project that has been going on there for some significant period of time. It has had a significant effect in the spinoffs of businesses, because the wood composite program, the research that has been done there, married to fiberglass technology and other forms of plastics that I don't understand, has led to a variety of new projects.

I really disagree with the gentleman from Arizona. The public sector and the private sector in this country are intertwined, for good or ill sometimes. But this is a case where we are generating economic development that is very important. I would go beyond that and say with this particular project at the University of Maine, you haven't yet heard about all they are doing, but they are basically making products for the Coast Guard and for the Army that will materially strengthen the ability of our military at home and around the globe.

They have developed a lightweight bridge that is easily transported because it is using these composite materials. And you haven't heard the concept yet of up-armored tents, but that is the next product line. It is going to make our tents in Iraq much safer than they ever have been from IEDs or incoming mortars.

I think it is wrong to all too quickly decide that these research projects, like the one we are discussing today, don't have economic spinoffs or, in this case, security spinoffs that are fundamentally important to this country.

With that, I urge the defeat of the amendment.

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