Statement by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). Re: HR ___ IH, the Helping to Improve Technology Education and Achievement Act (HI-TECH Act), a bill to temporarily increase the annual caps on H1B visas. Date: March 15, 2000. Source: Office of Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). This page was created by converting an MS Word file into HTML.

I am proud to join my colleagues both Democrats and Republicans in a bipartisan effort to address the needs of the high-technology industry.  The HI-TECH Act of 2000 will channel hundreds of millions of dollars into education and training programs for American children and incumbent workers while at the same time addressing the critical need of the high-technology industry for a highly skilled and talented workforce.

HI-TECH, the acronym for this bill stands for Helping to Improve Technology Education and Achievement.  As you know, many of us present are concerned about the Digital Divide.  We must make vast improvements to our education system and instill in our children the same enthusiasm and wonder for science and technology that they had when President Kennedy captured their imagination with thoughts of traveling to the moon.  We must do that by ensuring that every child has access to technology, in the schools and in the community.  No one should be left behind.

I believe this bill has the critical education components necessary to begin to bridge the Digital Divide by channeling much needed dollars to the Upward Bound Program, National Science Foundation scholarships and Student Loan forgiveness for Math and Science Teachers.

Additionally, this bill will help American industry remain competitive by ensuring that American companies have continued access to the greatest minds of our time.  Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system is in this country on an H-1B visa.  He used to be Finland’s greatest treasure.  Now he’s ours.  But before Linus gets a greencard he has miles to travel in the INS and DOL bureaucracy.

We should not be making it more difficult for people of his caliber to enter our country---we ought to be making it easier.  Do we really want talent like this to be evicted from America, to invent the new new NEW thing in a foreign land, and end up in competition with us?  Let them work for America.  The HI-TECH Act will make it easier for the US to keep people like Linus.

Some people have argued that the issue before us is one of shortage.  That’s too simple.  Our country’s education system fails too many children.  And when kids graduate from high school, not enough children pursue the sciences or math or engineering in college.  The bottom line is that you can’t train a software engineer or a chip designer overnight.  It takes years and years of training to become proficient in these extremely specialized fields.  So this issue is about long term education and training for Americans and access to great minds for our companies in the short term.

I thank my colleagues, and Chairman Dreier for reaching across the aisle and working with us on this legislation.