July 12, 2010
Chairman Gordon's Speech Before the European Union Members of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee
Chairman Reul and the esteemed Members of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to exchange views with you.
I had the opportunity the week before last to have a discussion with President Buzek about EU- US cooperation.
After our discussion, he asked me why I was so interested in transatlantic collaboration.
I told him because I love my 9 year old daughter and I’m very concerned that she as well as your children or grandchildren could inherit a national standard of living less than their parents – a reversal of what we call the American Dream—and I’m sure it is your dream also.
The reason for my concern is that there are 6 billion people in the world and half of those that are working make less than 2 Euros a day.
So we certainly don’t want to compete on labor costs. We must be more productive technologically.
But now some of those low wage countries are also investing heavily in research and technology as well as using their market size to require technology transfer and sometimes attempting to make their standards the international standards.
Other conntries that are large exporters of energy could threaten our energy security.
Because we- the US and the EU- share so many common goals, values and a similar standard of living, I think it is to our mutual benefit to look for ways to work together.
Especially in areas of research that do not create first to market advantage but rather have shared benefits such as energy security, climate change, clean water and a sustainable planet.
So what are the barriers to co-operation as legislators?
First the executive branch is usually the vehicle for such agreements, but I still think there is an important legislative role in oversight, advising, and legislating when necessary.
Language often created problems, however with the Lisbon Treaty, it is now easier for the US Congress to have a single contact with multiple EU nations.
Before, it was difficult to navigate multiple Parliaments.
But in my 26 years of interparlamentary exchanges, I have found that the biggest barrier to concrete results is the lack of aligning the Members areas’ of discussion with their legislative jurisdiction.
For example, it would be interesting and timely for us to discuss coordinating large bank regulation but neither your committee nor mine has jurisdiction to act on that subject.
So to be most productive, it is necessary to align jurisdiction with achievable goals.
I recently engaged in that manner with the U.K. Science and Technology Committee. We held parallel hearings on geoengineering.
Our Science and Technology Committee looked at areas of long term research and development and the U.K. reviewed international governance issues.
We will soon produce a joint report and I have passed the necessary legislation through the House to pursue the research.
I think that there are a number of interesting areas for our mutual review.
One common issue is rare earth minerals and strategic materials.
Both a recent European Commission working group report and a U.S. Geological Survey report pointed out that China has between 90-95% of the world’s rare earth minerals supply.
Furthermore, there were earlier hints that they were considering limiting their exports.
This is very important to both of our economies because rare earths in very small amounts significantly increase the efficiency of a variety of alternative energy and telecommunications products as well as other important uses.
So if you think that our parallel hearings would be useful, I would then plan to use that model to encourage other committee Chairmen to pursue joint work within their jurisdiction.
One chairman has already told me that intellectual property rights would be of interest to him and Ambassador Kennard has expressed an interest in cybersecurity cooperation.
Finally, I want to thank Reinhard Butikofer and the ITRE Secretariat for their help in arranging staff exchanges to better understand -- from a staff level -- the workings of our respective committees.
I would also like to commend Niki Tzavela for her initiative in co-operating with the US on the development of metrics to help us better assess the impact of our international and federal research investments.
So in conclusion, the long standing friendship between the U.S. and Europe has obvious origins. Many American’s parents or grandparents are European by birth. This bond makes for cultural similarities.
And many of the challenges we face today are not specific to one country or one continent. Whether discussing future energy sources, protecting from the threats of cyber security, or even climate change.
When friends work together they strengthen each other.
Next Article Previous Article