M. President, I am pleased to join today with my colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, to introduce the Nanotechnology Innovation and Prize Competition Act.
As Co-Chair of the Congressional Nanotechnology Caucus, and former Chair of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation, I have worked long and hard to advance U.S. competitiveness in nanotechnology. Nanotech is a rapidly developing field that offers a wide range of benefits to the country. It can create jobs, expand the economy, and strengthen America’s position as a global leader in technological innovation.
Nanotechnology will redefine the global economy and revolutionize it with an amazing array of technological innovation. There is virtually no industry that will not be impacted by the advances we know are possible with nanotechnology. But to unlock the full benefits of nanotechnology’s capabilities, the federal government must do more to partner with our nation’s innovative entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists. To that end, I am proposing, along with Senator Snowe, legislation that will create an X-Prize competition in nanotechnology.
Many people have heard of the X-Prize, a recent and high-profile example of a prize competition like the one Sen. Snowe and I are proposing today. The X-Prize was established in 1996 and set up a $10 million prize fund for the first team who could make civilian space flight a reality. The award was successfully claimed just eight years later. But that wasn’t the only achievement the X-Prize accomplished. During that span of time, the $10 million prize stimulated over $100 million in research and development by the competitors.
Successful prize competitions are not limited to the X-Prize. We’ve seen the value of these kinds of competitions before. One of the most famous was the Orteig prize, which was to be awarded to the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Claimed, of course, by Charles Lindbergh in 1927, the Orteig prize stimulated private investment sixteen times greater than the amount of the prize. Imagine what kind of explosion in investment and innovation we could achieve in nanotechnology with the competition we’re proposing today.
By establishing this nanotechnology prize competition, the federal government will promote public-private cooperation to accelerate investment in key areas and help solve critical problems. The very first prize competition was, in fact, a government-sponsored competition that produced a revolutionary technological breakthrough. In 1714, the British Parliament established a prize for determining a ship's longitude at sea. At the time, the inability to accurately determine longitude was causing many ships to become lost. Solving this critical problem by creating a competition to find the answer paved the way to British naval superiority.
Today, other government-sponsored prize competitions are driving technological breakthroughs and successes. For example, the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge have stimulated tremendous advances in remotely-controlled vehicle technology.
The Nanotechnology Innovation and Prize Competition Act is a vital tool to help ensure that public and private resources will be utilized in a coordinated way and will be devoted to solving the complex and pressing problems that America faces today. This bill will also spur technological investment and create jobs here at home. Through this prize competition, the government will be able to leverage its resources and focus the intellectual and economic capacity of our nation’s best and brightest entrepreneurs on finding the big answers we need in the smallest of technologies -- nanotechnology.
The Nanotechnology Innovation and Prize Competition Act creates four priority areas for the establishment of prize competitions: green nanotechnology, alternative energy applications, improvements in human health, and the commercialization of consumer products. In each of these areas, nanotechnology holds the promise of tremendous breakthroughs if the necessary resources are devoted. This competition will make sure we get started as soon as possible on finding those breakthroughs. We all know that the competitive spirit is one of the strengths of our country. This bill will ignite that spirit in nanotech.
Again, I thank my colleague from Maine for her help and cooperation in introducing this bill. I also want to thank the Woodrow Wilson Center and the X-PRIZE Foundation for their work in helping to develop this bill. I look forward to working with the Commerce Committee, other members of the Congressional Nanotechnology Caucus, the Administration and the entire nanotech community to pass the nanotechnology reauthorization bill.
I urge all my colleagues to support innovation and promote entrepreneurial competition by cosponsoring this legislation. I ask that a copy of the bill and my statement be printed in the Record, and I yield the floor.
