Senator Ensign

The Senate's Technology Guy

June / July 2005 By: Tom Michael Volume 3 Number 3

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John Ensign hasn't even finished his first term in the U.S. Senate, but he has already carved out his niche as one of Capitol Hill's major players on new technology. The 47-year-old Nevada Republican wields the gavel on not one, but two key tech panels—€”the Republican High Tech Task Force and the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness.

The task force is an informal policy group that serves as a sounding board for industry, while the subcommittee has jurisdiction and/or interest in a wide array of tech-heavy government initiatives, including the National Science Foundation.

Ensign has a natural interest in the advance of technology, and he maintains that a smaller-government approach can help small businesses expand and thrive. Startup businesses are particularly successful when they employ new technologies, and Nevada, with its relatively low tax rates, has become a mecca for these types of companies, he said.

During a recent interview with TechComm in Washington, Ensign outlined his tech-related legislative priorities and discussed why these issues are likely to gain traction in congress as politicians realize their value on the campaign trail.

A veterinarian first elected to the senate in 2000, Ensign said the most pressing priority for congress is to encourage more basic scientific research and development.

"The physical sciences need a lot more R&D; I don't think we're investing nearly enough," Ensign said.

Congress doubled the budget at the National Institutes of Health last year, but the National Science Foundation lags far behind, Ensign said.

"At the NSF we have not kept pace," he lamented. "The federal government has a role in basic research and we need to be putting more money in that. When we do that in the physical sciences, the industry will follow. I believe that the dollars you put in there you get a lot more dollars back."

Investing in basic research —€”biosciences, the life sciences or the hard sciences, nanotechnology—€”provides a foundation for innovation that can be created and sustained by private business spinoffs, he said.

Of course, just about every federal agency would appreciate bigger budgets. But with a bloated federal deficit and the ongoing wars on terror and in Iraq, the extra money won't be easy to find.

"We're in tight budget times," he conceded.

That's why Ensign said he is scheduling a series of subcommittee hearings this year to explore how government investment stimulates private-sector activity.

"We'll highlight the ways that research money from the federal government plays a role in creating jobs in America and making American businesses more competitive. The more competitive the businesses are, the more jobs we have in America."

Ensign said the Nevada Test Site, a massive outdoor laboratory and national experimental center situated on 1,375 square miles of barren landscape, is doing better at trying to make its research work for the local business community.

"It also needs to do even more work on their role with the universities," Ensign said of NTS.

He said any major national research facility—€”including nuclear laboratories such as Sandia and Los Alamos in New Mexico—€”would better serve their communities by establishing partnerships with universities.

"The more the national labs can interact with the universities and research programs there, the more that will spill off and into the private sector," he said.

As the go-to guy on technology for senate Republicans, Ensign said he is constantly considering ways to enhance all aspect of technology, not just tech-transfer. He has also championed tax restructuring. Last year, he sponsored Ensign Invest in USA ACT that aimed in part to provide tax relief for companies that invest overseas.

"When American businesses invest overseas and want to bring the money back they can be taxed up to a 35 percent tax rate," Ensign said. "Other countries don't treat their businesses that way. They allow them to bring that money back because they know it will create jobs in their country."

Ensign said that high-tech companies—€”phone companies, cable companies, energy companies—€”are often subject to a lot of local taxes. He'd like to change that.
"But communications companies like Skype, that originate out of the Netherlands, they have no taxes or regulations and there is no way to tax or regulate them," he said. "We are putting American businesses at a competitive disadvantage to overseas businesses."

Ensign also thinks the federal government should relax its rules on expensing stock options. The Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed for six-months the implementation of a new rule that requires companies to recognize the cost of stock options on their bottom lines.

"Stock options have been one of the best tools that Silicon Valley and high-tech businesses have used to attract people, great people, to their companies," Ensign said. "It's led to more innovation and more jobs in America."

"Now in America we are saying let's discourage them by expensing them," he added with a sigh of frustration.

Ensign is as a congressional ambassador for technology, traveling, meeting with people like Bill Gates, and trying to find ways not only to stimulate the tech field and improve America with federal research dollars, but also local economies.

Ensign said he recently met a man who had done years of research on a space program in conjunction with the University of Arizona. The project—€” essentially an effort to build spaceships capable of traveling to Mars—€”didn't pan out.

But now that same science is being applied to develop renewable energy sources.
As Congress debates a major national energy bill, Ensign said he is again excited about the prospect of technology helping to boost American production and conservation.

"Technology is going to be a big part of the answer for our energy problems for the future," he said.

Once the domain of geeky scientists, government policy wonks and go-getting investors, Ensign said high-tech issues are finally starting to attract the attention of politicians who previously didn't understand them and really didn't care to.

"The Republican high-tech task force has done a great job of communicating these issues; there has been a lot of vision," Ensign said. "It's interesting now that the Democrats have formed their own task force recognizing the importance of technology and also the success our task force has had."

Tom Michael reports from Washington for TechComm.