House Passes Final America COMPETES Act as Part of Innovation Agenda

The House has just passed the final House-Senate agreement on the America COMPETES Act, H.R. 2272 by a vote of 367-57. This legislation is the culmination of a year and a half-long, bipartisan effort to pass an Innovation Agenda that boldly responds to the global economic challenges identified in the 2005 National Academies report, Rising above the Gathering Storm. It ensures American students, teachers, businesses, and workers are prepared to continue leading the world in innovation, research, and technology well into the future.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke in favor of the bill:

Speaker Pelosi: "What an exciting day for the Congress. Some of you are too young to know this but you've about it in the history books. Mr. Hall and I remember when President Kennedy came forward and said that he was going to inaugurate a program that would send a man to the moon and back safely within 10 years. Now for those of you who weren't born yet and read about it in history, you have to know that sending a man to the moon as an idea was uch an impossibility. It would be like almost a magician cutting somebody in half and putting them back together again. How could this possibly happen that somebody would go into the sky, to the moon and come back?"