Eric Thomas or Frances Cox 202/822-9491 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2008

Compete America Applauds Senator Alexander and Senate Republican Conference for Renewed Effort on Competitiveness Agenda

Washington, D.C. – Compete America congratulated Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, for his continued pursuit of bipartisan legislation to address three key areas impacting U.S. competitiveness: permanent extension of the R&D tax credit, reform of the immigration system for highly educated workers and funding for research and education provisions in the America COMPETES Act. 

Under Senator Alexander’s leadership, the Republican Conference will host a series of events this week to highlight progress in the U.S. Competitiveness Agenda, and to identify the issues that are urgently in need of congressional action, including:

• Highly Educated Immigration – Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) have proposed reforms to the H-1B visa and employment-based green card programs that would:  1) recognize the importance of highly educated foreign professionals to our economy; and 2) to remove arbitrary caps and quotas to allow U.S. employers to hire the top-notch talent necessary to maintain our leadership in key industries like technology, medicine, science and engineering.  

• Funding for Research and Education – As a follow-up to the many important provisions contained in the America COMPETES Act, passed in 2007, Senator Alexander is calling on Congress to approve the necessary levels of federal funding needed to support a greater investment in scientific research and to improve education opportunities in math, science, engineering and technology.

• R&D Tax Credit – Bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) would extend or make permanent the research and development (R&D) tax credits that expired in 2007.  The expired credits threaten to cripple investment by the U.S. private sector in the type of groundbreaking research that is necessary to sustain American innovation leadership.

“We appreciate the efforts of Senator Alexander, and the members of the Senate Republican Conference, for singling out those issues that will improve America’s international competitiveness,” said Robert Hoffman, Vice President for Government and Public Affairs at Oracle and Co-Chair of Compete America.  “These issues have broad, bipartisan support, and Congress should enact these measures this year.”

For more information on how highly educated immigration benefits America, please visit www.competeamerica.org. 

Compete America (www.competeamerica.org) is a coalition of corporations, educators, research institutions and trade associations concerned about legal, employment-based immigration and committed to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated workforce necessary to ensure continued innovation, job creation and leadership in a worldwide economy.

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