Mikulski Advances Maryland's Space Science and Innovation Economy at Space Business Roundtable

"I am so glad to see each and every one of you here for this really big turnout, and I know that you're all very interested in what we have to say about the President's budget and the direction that we're going. I also want to say a few things about you. I want to thank you for being you. I want to thank the Maryland Space Business Roundtable for giving us a forum and a gathering where we can speak about Maryland space initiatives in a way that really is an advocate for the things that we do. We're united in the fact that we want to promote American exceptionalism in a variety of ways. It is just terrific being here, and I'm so glad to be part of this program. We want to thank you.

"I also want to thank you for giving and for focusing on the scholarship aspects of our young people. Over the weekend I had a fantastic opportunity to go visit something called the FIRST Robotic Program, and I spent a couple of hours there. Really, it is in doing and promoting these efforts, after school activities that will involve our young people into science and technology. It helps them, when we look at the American Helicopter Prize, scholarships much needed, right Dr. Kerwin? So we want to thank you for all of your initiatives.

"And that goes to me thanking Rushern for being here. Not only taking an interest in the Maryland space community, you're really the first county executive to put that much time and thought into it and I think we owe him a round of applause. Also with you here and Dr. Kerwin we've got the winning team here, because the winning team will be based on education. I truly believe what Condoleeza Rice says, that education is the civil rights issue of this generation. As we expand immigration, as we welcome in the Dreamers, as we create opportunity, we must have an educational system that recognizes children at the earliest school level all the way through so they can come to our great schools, like our great Land Grant Colleges. And Rushern, we congratulate you on taking the initiative on how you want to refocus and reenergize the Prince George's County school system, and we wish you well; you're going where no man has ever gone before.

"I'm glad to be here with my colleagues in government, Chris and Mary and Matt and others. Thank you for all of the great work that you do.

"A funny thing happened to me last year. It actually wasn't funny, but what a difference a year makes. Let me just take you behind the scenes and tell you what happened. It was December 17. It was a Monday. We were facing yet one more lame duck session, and like most lame ducks, it had more quack and more duck than anything else. We were feeling de-energized and de-spirited looking ahead to the fiscal cliff. As we voted like we normally do on a Monday night, and I'm standing next to Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy, word came to the United States Senate that our beloved and dear friend, a Congressional Medal of Honor Winner, and one of the great icons in the Senate, Senator Dan Inouye had passed away. We were sad, and we talked among ourselves. Senator Harry Reid turned to Senator Leahy and said, 'Well, you're the next in line in seniority.' Remember, it's not age, it's time elected. 'That means you're going to become the President Pro Tempore.' For those of you who don't sit around reading constitutions and about continuity of government, the President Pro Tempore is the fourth in line in the continuity of government. It's the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the President Pro Tempore. Harry said to Pat, 'We have to swear you in right away so we can maintain the continuity.' We can never break that chain. Pat says, 'Tomorrow. I want my wife to be here.' Then Reid says, 'You're next in line to chair the Appropriations Committee.' Leahy says, 'I'll take it.' I'm standing there. Feinstein says, 'I'll take Judiciary.' And I said, 'Oh my god that means I chair the Intelligence Committee.' I left the Senate that night thinking that I was going to come in Tuesday morning chairing the Intelligence Committee. So, that was great. I mean, it's a little quiet; a little invisible for me, but it's actually not quiet at all.

"Leahy says, 'I need time to think this over. I've got so much that's coming through Judiciary.' I'll just consolidate this now. I came to the United States Senate on Wednesday morning not knowing whether I would chair the Intelligence Committee, and if Leahy turned it down, it would go to Harkin who was ahead of me. That meant I could chair the Health and Education Committee, or I could chair the full Appropriations Committee. Leahy calls me at 10 o'clock in the morning and says, 'I'm going to tell Harry that I'm going to stick with Judiciary because we have gun control, immigration -- everything I have been working on for a lifetime. I'm going to stick with it.' Harkin calls me and says, 'Sit tight, I've got a big decision.' Well, what could I do but sit tight? Can you imagine? Then finally at 4:17 that afternoon I got a call from Harry Reid saying Harkin wants to talk to you and you're going to be happy. I still didn't know what that meant; I was going to be happy no matter what. But at 4:17 that day, Harry shook my hand, said 'Good luck,' and that's how I became the full Chair of the Appropriations Committee.

"We were facing some very big challenges: we were facing the fiscal cliff, Hurricane Sandy Emergency funding was on the floor, and we knew that the continuing funding resolution and sequester lay ahead. What I knew very clearly is that I wanted to establish my goals, and I share those goals with you. You're familiar with them, where I've said every year, coming to you for so often and so long, among my closest and dearest friends in this room, that have helped me be a good Senator and an effective Senator. You can do a job, but unless you have partners that job can only be done if we work together. I wanted to be able to look out for the day to day needs of my constituents, and figure out how to turn that into national policy. Their hopes, their dreams, particularly for education; make sure that we have a middle class and that more and more people can be a part of that middle class. And the long range needs of our country, not only on national security, but on coming up with the new ideas that lead to the new products, that lead to the new jobs in our country. I wanted to take this responsibility very seriously: To be able to focus on it for the good of the nation while never ever forgetting Maryland. That's what I did when I walked on the floor to take the role to begin to move legislation on Hurricane Sandy.

"The Appropriations Committee is only one of two committees that are mandated by the Constitution. The only two congressional committees actually stated in the Constitution are the Revenue Committee, now known as the Finance Committee, and the Spending Committee - which is the Appropriations Committee. Those committees were created by our founders to help govern the nation. When Congress has instituted other committees, it was to help them govern themselves to do their jobs. The modern Appropriations Committee was created in 1867. We had come out of the Civil War, the nation was depleted financially and energetically, and yet it had to begin the great job of Reconstruction and rebuilding itself. It was on the dawn of a new age, the Industrial Age, and it was wondering how to organize its resources. What we did in 1867 continues to be the challenge here in 2013 and in 2014. We're coming off of two wars that took a lot of our national talent and a lot of our national treasury. Our president wants us to rebuild America and continue this American exceptionalism. That is the role of the Appropriations Committee, and it is a role that I want to continue to do, working with our President.

"The way I wanted to go about it was, first of all, was on process and on tone. The fact is that we are facing too much in Congress: gridlock, deadlock, ultimatum politics, brinkmanship politics, slam downs, shutdowns, take it or leave it, take it or leave, all of this yelling and screaming, not talking with each other but at each other, usually from cable talk shows, or blogs, or tweets, or all of those kinds of things, but not talking with and not working with. So what I did, while reaching out to who would be my ranking member, my Vice Chairman, Senator Dick Shelby of Alabama, somebody that I have worked with for a number of years. We were in the House together; we came to the Senate together. You know him from his work on space programs and national security, and the fact is that he will be and is the vice chairman of my committee. I said, 'Dick, we're going to work together like people haven't worked together in a long time. Let's work with House, let's be not only bi-partisan, but also bi-cameral.' I called Congressman Hal Rogers, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives. Senators don't usually do that. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance; usually we focus on pomp and sit around in our circumstances. But I thought it was time for a new day and a new way. I called Congressman Rogers and said, 'Can Dick and I come over and talk to you?' He said, 'Over to the House?' 'Yes.' 'My office?' 'Yes.' Well Senator Shelby and I walked across the one hundred yards from the Senate side or whatever it is, and if you think that Terps sometimes have a hard time going one hundred yards...

"What we agreed upon is that there would be substantial differences on substance, policy and line items, but where there doesn't have to be a difference, was in process and procedure. That's how we began to work together. Soon, we were on the floor and we moved Hurricane Sandy supplemental funding when everyone said we couldn't move the Hurricane Sandy bill. Then as time went on, we faced the Sequester on March 1. It was a terrible, terrible event, but sequester happened, and we were also facing another deadline, which was March 27. What we vowed, on a bi-cameral and bi-partisan basis, was that we would not have another government shutdown; our economy couldn't take it, our business community couldn't take it, our workers and the jobs in our country couldn't take it, and by god we were going to make it happen or if it couldn't happen then it would never happen again. We said that together, the four of us: Rogers, Lowey, Mikulski, and Shelby.

"Then Rogers said, I'm going to move a FY2013 spending bill, and it's going to be what I can get through with the Tea Party. I heard about it and I said, 'It's going to be skimpy, but send it over and we'll at least have a vehicle.' The vehicle came over and you know the rest of the story. We were on the floor for two weeks, and we passed that bill. I will tell you, I could not pass this bill without the wonderful work of Dick Shelby. When push came to shove, and I needed a cloture vote, he made sure we had the votes to pass cloture and then the bill, because we did work on a bi-partisan basis, and passed with 73 votes in the United States Senate! That's what I call progress!

"I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to talk about where we are now. I thought you would find it interesting, the drama around what happened to me, but how if you are really willing to make the process work, it can.

"Now, the President has sent us his budget. I intend to work with President Obama in making sure that that budget is implemented. When it's implemented, I support the President's goals of creating jobs, revitalizing infrastructure, focusing on education and training. What I will do in case Space News or tweets are here, everybody wants to know what is the level that I'm going to mark up the bill. I've already instructed my subcommittees that we will mark up at a $1.058 trillion dollars - the same deal made months ago in the American Taxpayers Relief Act. We will not markup to the House level of 960-some billion dollars. We are going to go to what we voted for in the Fiscal Cliff deal bill. We look forward then to moving our bills that will promote these national goals. I believe that these national goals are absolutely included in the Commerce, Justice, Science bill. You cannot do what my sub-committee, which I've kept, Commerce, Justice and Science, NOAA, NASA, the National Science Foundation. If you want to invest in those new ideas that will promote American exceptionalism and come up with the new ideas for the new jobs, it's right there in that subcommittee. I pledge to you, this committee is going to pass in regular order, it's going to be signed by the President, and we're going to keep going into space, we're going to keep doing our space science, we're going to be predicting weather, and we're going to make that European model look wimpy, and we're going to go for it!

"Before I talk about NASA, I want to talk about NOAA. First of all, we want the President to appoint a new Director of NOAA. I really do believe, that for all the great work that NOAA does, the action is in weather. We have more and more freaky weather, so we need to have better forecasting. That means we've got a satellite reform project underway, we're going to keep the reform movement going, and at the same time, working with Louis Uccellini, we're going to do all that we can to invest and modernize our weather service that is located right here in Prince George's County, right on the M Square Research Park at College Park, to make sure weather service is the best in the world; saving lives, saving property, and creating jobs. We're going to make sure that my man Cantore over at the Weather Channel, when he does his weather reports, and tilts in that direction, brags about us. That's what we're going to be able to do and it's going to happen right here.

"Now, let's talk about NASA. I've been concerned for some time about how there's been a trend line down in the cuts in NASA. For whatever I tried to do about it, I often met with higher powers that undid the work that Senator Shelby and I were doing. The President's budget calls for $17.7 billion in NASA, $223 million more than last year. We're going to keep that $223 million, and we're going to make sure we get value for it. We're going to do all that we can to continue the balanced program that is necessary. What are our goals? Human space flight, reliable transportation systems, space science, meaning space out there and Earth science in here, and at the same time be looking out for our aeronautics program. We think that we can do this. I've already begun to talk to Senator Shelby. We're holding a meeting with Administrator Bolden and our hearing is on April 25, and we believe that we can do that. We know that for NASA's budget 2014, that the President would like to capture a small asteroid. He also has other things he would like to do. We support him in that. We're concerned, however, with the cuts to Orion and SLS. I'll be very blunt: with Senator Shelby as my vice chairman, we can't cut Orion and SLS. That's the political reality, and actually, we have invested so much in Orion and SLS, we don't want to slow ourselves down or derail the good work. So, we will need to be able to find a balance and a compromise. But I think Mikulski and Shelby have demonstrated that when there's a will, there's a way, and if there's a will and a way, we can find the wallet to do what we need to do in human space flight.

"This also means, though, that we need to look at science. That Earth science has received a slight increase, $98 million. We've met our target for the full funding for this cycle of the James Webb telescope; this is fantastic because we'll be number one in astronomy for the next fifty years. I'm concerned though that planetary science received a close to 12 percent decrease, $168 million. That's kind of hard, and I know it comes from the Mars robotics program. We have to take a look at that. I'm not prepared today to say yes no or whatever, I am prepared though to talk about these principles that we want. So we need our space science program. Whether it's helio-physics, whether it is our mission to planet Earth, or to do the things we need to do. We also know that in the President's budget, he provides $105 million to the solar probe. Also we are on track for our Wallops Program. I think Maryland did pretty well. I don't mean to say that when OMB was working and they had their green eye shades, they knew nothing would happen without me. I always ask three questions: One, what do we need to do for the nation? Two, what do we need to do for Maryland? The third question is: What did you say we were going to do for Maryland? That, in a nutshell, is really what the budget is.

"I know many of you are facing the tensions surrounding sequester, and we have to talk about that for a minute. Sequester and resolving that has to be done at the Presidential and leadership level. I believe we can find a solution to that, but that takes a balanced approach. A balanced approach means that we have to look at strategic cuts in the budget, both in defense as well as domestic discretionary, and we also have to look for new revenue streams, and plug up those lavish loopholes and get rid of tax break ear-marks. They got rid of earmarks in the discretionary spending, why can't we get rid of earmarks in the tax code? I believe that we could find at least another $600 billion in revenue. Mitt Romney said that much during his presidential campaign. But I'm not here to sound like a technocrat, what I am here to say is this: for all of you who are in government and our wonderful contractors, those in education, and those who have to run state and local governments, sequester and particularly sequester in Maryland, is a very serious thing. I want you to know that I worry about that. That's why when I pass the continuing funding resolution, I tried to give the agencies as much flexibility as I could, because I worry about the men and women who are working in public and private enterprises, I worry about the Dreamers, whether they're the Latino kids who want to be included fully in American society, or the other boys and girls, all of our boys and girls should be the Dreamers. Their dreams should be within reach. That means they need to have the support to go to the school and major in the things that they know will improve their lives and the lives of others. I want you to know, that I'm not only going to fight for the President's budget on what we're going to spend, but I'm going to work with the President of the United States and the leadership to crack the sequester code, and to really go for a grand bargain, so we don't have to face this year after year. We shouldn't have to manage the things that have gone wrong. We need to manage so we can do the things that we want to do right. Your talent, your energy should be a look-ahead, what can we do better, what can we smarter, what can we do with a greater sense of frugality. But at the end of the day, how can we move our country's agenda, your agenda, whether it's your business, or your agency, or your educational institutions, how do we keep America number one in the 21st Century? Number one not only as a military might, but as an economic superpower, and an education superpower and we show that we can govern ourselves and get rid of gridlock and deadlock.

"I want you to know that I'm ready right now, fighting for you every single day. And why? Because I believe in you. It is not government that makes America great, and it's not even its political leadership that makes America great, it's the men and women like you who every day and in every way put their heart and soul, their talent, their personal treasury into being able to do this. I met a young man here today who helped give out flyers when I was running for city council. He went to Polytechnic in Baltimore, he went to University of Maryland, Dr. Kerwin, and now he has his own high tech company. His name is Kerry Wisnosky. Now, the fact that he is Polish, maybe gives him a special preference. I don't mean to single out Kerry, I could go around the room and single out each and every one of you, how you started small and grew big. And if you were already big, how you really looked to continue to the growth. I want you to know, I'm on your side. I'm on your side because when we talk about America being exceptional, it's not in our technology, and it's not in our buildings, or in our modems, it's in our people. You're the best, I think you're the most wonderful, and I'm going to fight for you in every way I can. God bless you and God bless America."

Print

Source