Amendment No. 1588 to Amendment No. 1502

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to call up my amendment No. 1588, which is cosponsored by Senators Graham and Lujan, Barrasso, and Collins.

This amendment would establish a Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation, a nonprofit Foundation to support the Department of Energy's mission to help raise private capital to accelerate the commercialization of new and cutting-edge technologies.

As China has dramatically ramped up their R&D funding, our Federal funding has remained stagnant, threatening U.S. competitiveness and our potential to develop, bring to scale, and export clean energy technologies.

This amendment will take a model already proven by Foundations affiliated with the NIH, the CDC, the Department of Agriculture, and create a Foundation to channel private sector investments into our world-class scientific innovation institutions, our National Labs.

This new Foundation would support the great work already happening at the Department of Energy by leveraging public-private partnerships to address tech transfer barriers.

Working on this bill over the years, I have heard significant interest from the private sector and philanthropists looking for an entity to coordinate their investment.

This bipartisan and bicameral bill passed the House last year with the leadership of now Senator Lujan, and I urge my colleagues to support its passage.

I want to thank my partners, Senators Graham and Lujan, for their leadership and thank Senators Barrasso and Collins for cosponsoring, Senators Schumer and Manchin for their support, and Senators Wicker, Cantwell, and Young for their leadership on the Endless Frontier Act.
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