chair lofgren: thank you very much. my time has expired. i would like to recognize the ranking member, mr. lucas. mr. lucas: thank you, madam chair. george and i think we have worked together long enough i can tell you george. you mentioned your testimony about listing several areas about how the committee could fill gaps and address shortfalls. and the chairwoman very appropriately went down that. could you expand for a moment thinking about from a committee's perspective, prioritizing those. where particularly, george, if you had the ability to give us guidance, how would you prioritize one, two, three, four, if you don't mind. mr. geissler: i would be glad to. thank you, representative lucas. yes, you can call me george, any time. the priority we are looking at -- i am very aware of a lot of the satellite technology as some of the early work that's been going on. in fact, in my time with oklahoma forest service we would working closely with the severe storms lab doing early detection and notification modeling. i know that while there is l

the chair -- ms. lofgren: before yielding to the gentleman from north carolina i would like to note, correct the record, that the joint committee on the library organized last wednesday and until last wednesday the joint committee was chaired by senator roy blunt of missouri, republican senator, and i have new been chair for six days and hope to act promptly on the north carolina matter. with that, i would yield four minutes to the distinguished chair of the elections subcommittee in the house administration committee, mr. g.k. butterfield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. butterfield: let me first thank the chair for her friendship and leadership on our committee an thank you for yielding time this afternoon. madam speaker, just a little bit of history. i want to take you back to 1860, president lincoln won the general election in 1860 by winning 18 of 29 states. madam speaker, the 11 states lincoln failed to carry were slaveholding states. these states were fearful that lincoln woul

the chair -- ms. lofgren: before yielding to the gentleman from north carolina i would like to note, correct the record, that the joint committee on the library organized last wednesday and until last wednesday the joint committee was chaired by senator roy blunt of missouri, republican senator, and i have new been chair for six days and hope to act promptly on the north carolina matter. with that, i would yield four minutes to the distinguished chair of the elections subcommittee in the house administration committee, mr. g.k. butterfield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. butterfield: let me first thank the chair for her friendship and leadership on our committee an thank you for yielding time this afternoon. madam speaker, just a little bit of history. i want to take you back to 1860, president lincoln won the general election in 1860 by winning 18 of 29 states. madam speaker, the 11 states lincoln failed to carry were slaveholding states. these states were fearful that lincoln woul

lofgren: mr. speaker, i want to thank chair obama johnson and ranking member -- chairwoman johnson and ranking member lucas for their extraordinary bipartisan leadership on these bills. these two bills recognize the urgency of federal scientific investment. you know, over the past few decades, federal spending on r&d flatlined as a share of our economy and it's fallen in absolute terms. meanwhile, global competitors jumpstarted their economic growth through such investments that spurs innovation. maintaining our leadership in research and development is arguably more important than ever. now's the time to be bold in our vision of what's possible. we shortchanged the nation every year when we refuse to fund a rich portfolio of research opportunities. i want to talk about n.s.f. for the future. it's part of the remedy and it strikes the appropriate balance of expanding popular and effective projects and programs while expanding the foundation's role and mandate to new areas of evolving technologies. the approach to the creation of a new directorate outlined in the bill sets an appropriate benchmark as