mr. ehlers for sponsoring this meaningful piece of legislation. both of these individuals are great advocates of aviation and they need to be commended for this -- for this bill. mr. speaker, aviation plays an important role in america and throughout the well. it inspires innovation. without flight insthructors -- instructors, flight schools promoting an teaching the next generation of pilots, many of these benefits won't be realized. the u.s. pilot population has declined. as a commercial pilot, myself, it was easy for me because i grew up across the road from the airport. i played in airplane wrecks as a kid. i pumped gas and washed windshielded and washed airlines. anyway to get a lesson. and i grew up with it and grew up next to it so i was able to learn to fly. but i find the news that the pilot population is declining, i find that extremely disappointing. and in response, the international learn to fly day was established, and it's the third saturday in may. and this goal is to increase interest in flying and to encourage the aviation communi

mr. ehlers: thank you, mr. speaker. it's a pleasure to be here and especially a pleasure to follow my good friend from texas, mr. johnson, who gave us an eloquent warning about what can happen in view of our mounting national debt. and the countries we owe the money to. if anyone wishes to learn more about this, i recommend you the writings of mallry factor who has written several good pieces on that recently, and i hope to organize a one-hour discussion of that at some point. i also want to raise another affect. one of the first bills to come up today is the rewriting and revamping the america competes act. this is an act that was generated by president george w. bush. i had the pleasure of working with the white house on this bill and also with the office of management and budget and i think it's beginning to achieve its objectives and that is to strengthen american manufacturi. if we do not improve our manufacturing sector in the united states of america, we are going to continue to borrow more and more and more mone

mr. ehlers, we have bipartisan support. but we have others, mr. barton in the committee made very constructive suggestions on how to improve this bill and they were incorporated in it, a specific number, about how much we're going to spend, not open-ended. a sunset so we can kick the tires after a few years and see how the program is working. former michigan governor, republican, john engler, strong endorser. former secretary of energy in the bush administration, spencer abraham, fully endorsing this. why? it's practical, common sense, it's a partnership between the public and private sector. there's been a concern raised about spending, and rightly so. this bill must be paid for. all of us who support this legislation acknowledge that and we will have to vote on how exactly we're going to have this paid for and we will. but let's keep in mind that there is a difference between a wise investment and wasteful spending. when off bill that's going to put our 25% unemployment rate folks back to work and it's going to allow homeowners to save money, no

mr. hall: i yieldo dr. ehlers two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for two minutes. mr. ehlers: i want to thank chairman gordon and ranking member hall for all their hard work on this legislation. it is a complex bill. it has been from the start beginning in 2006. when president george w. bush developed the idea the american competitiveness initiative which is a three-pronged approach as strengthening research at n.s.f. and nist. we must continue that effort. we heard a peech this morning during the one-minute segment from theentleman from texas, mr. johnson, about his concern about our debt to the chinese. it's going to get worse and worse unless we generate more wealth in this country. and any economist will tell you that one of the best ways to generate wealth in this nation is through manufacturing. we must restore our manufacturg operations in this nation, we must work together to put our country in a more stable fiscal basis. we must stop overspending. and we have to restore man

mr. ehlers: thank the gentleman for hold -- mr. ellison: i thank the gentleman for yielding. let me dive right in. few facts the american people may want to consider, the very month that barack obama took office, the -- it was january 20, george bush was the president that whole month, 741,000 jobs lost to the american economy. 741,000 jobs lost under the republicans when they had the presidency and even back when they had majorities in both the senate and in the house of representatives. the fact is that the reality is the job losses -- this is a board that i think it very revealing. demonstrates that on the vertical axis is time. month during the year. 2007 all the way to march, 2010. and on this -- on this vertical axis, job changes. here we see when george bush -- in january, 2008, bush begins to lose jobs. and they very clearly go down to hit the very bottom when we see december, 2008, january, 2009. what we see during the obama administration is a steady climb back up from the abyss. we've even seen positive job growth for a few months very recently. this is an importan

mr. ehlers who understands that less is more. the less energy we use, the better. the difficulty with this motion to recommission is -- to recommit is all the work done on your side will kill the bill. what makes sense and why the former governor of michigan like this is so much is it is simple. a homeowner who wants to retrofit, insulate his or her home, all they have to do is go to the contractor. they don't have to hasle with paperwork and government. that's the reason why we designed it this way. to make it easy for people to use and contractors to use. we have a chance. -- we have a chance in this legislation to take a practical step to move to use less energy rather than more. whether you're from a coal state, a nuclear state a hide roe state, that's a good thing -- a hydro state, that's a good thing. we have red districts and blue districts but we've got carpenters, plumbers, and others out of work in both. we've got manufacturers in this country that have capacity that want to put people back to work in their communities and we can do it with this legislati

mr. ehlers of michigan for their promotion of stem education.i want to join my colleague from california, representative harman. i, too, am a former member of the science committee. i agree completely with her remarks on this issue. science, tech nothing, engineering and math -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics, better known as stem education, is instrumental to our ability to stay on the cutting edge of the global economy. yet, the united states is indeed falling behind the rest of the world in the number of students that are graduating from stem fields. mr. speaker, according to a 2006 association of american universities study that is noted in the findings of h. resolution 1213, 33.3% of students in china received their undergraduate degrees in engineering. in sing apour, that number -- in singapore, that number is 31.9% and 29 kp 5% of south korea's graduates fall in those fields. the united states is lagging so far behind with a staggering 4.5% of graduates in engineering. 4.5%. in order for us to remain competitive in a dem