Remarks Prepared for Dr. Raymond L. Orbach
Under Secretary for Science
U.S. Department of Energy
Announcement of the DOE Bioenergy Research Centers
National Press Club
Washington, DC
June 26, 2007

Good afternoon. I am Raymond Orbach, Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy.

I am delighted to welcome all of you to this important and historic announcement.

One of America’s great strengths as a nation has been our ability, at critical moments in our history, to mobilize the scientific talents of our people to meet great national challenges. We did so during World War II with the Manhattan Project. We did so again in the late 1950s after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite.  We did so yet again in the 1960s when our country successfully met President Kennedy’s grand challenge to put a man on the moon by the end of that decade.

With energy security a global issue, in tandem with climate change and other environmental concerns, we need to do that again.  Energy and environment are front and center as our challenge for humanity.

Today we are announcing a major initiative to that end.

The Secretary has said this is perhaps the most important initiative the Department of Energy has taken during his tenure, and I agree. 

It may well prove to be the most significant investment that Sam Bodman has spearheaded in his long and distinguished career.

Secretary Bodman is a member of President Bush’s Cabinet, the head of an agency with a budget of $23.5 billion that does critically important basic and applied research to advance our Nation’s energy, economic and national security.

Before joining President Bush’s administration (as deputy secretary of Commerce and then deputy secretary of Treasury), Sam Bodman had an impressive career in business.

He was the chief executive officer of a leading chemical company, Cabot Chemical; a senior executive of one of our country’s leading financial services firms, Fidelity Investments; and a venture capitalist.

But he started out as one of us – and he remains so to this day.  For Secretary Bodman graduated from Cornell with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, earned his doctorate in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then was an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT for 6 years before he went into business.

Dr. Bodman’s training as an engineer has served him well throughout his impressive career, and now his aptitude for science and commitment to America’s future competitiveness make him an outstanding advocate for federal investments in science and technology.