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The U.S. is losing more emerging technologies than any time in its history. We still innovate, we still build some new technologies like batteries. But they are produced and manufactured elsewhere. And if a company starts production here, they often move elsewhere.
I blogged separately on an exchange between Obama and Arlen Specter at a meeting the President had with Senators on February 3, 2010.
Senator Brown, citing the fact that emerging technologies are bypassing us, asked the President a question about whether we are going to have a manufacturing policy given the fact that other countries do so.
Obama said that China is not a democracy so does not debate or filibuster. He said the Ron Bloom is going to provide a report on manufacturing. He said the U.S. still innovates. He did not cite the unfair trade and investment and IP practices overseas which cause this shift in manufacturing.
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SENATOR BROWN: It was terrific. Ten miles from there, Oberlin College, one of the great private institutions of higher learning in this country -- at Oberlin College, there was a building built there seven or eight years ago, fully powered by solar panels. It's the only -- it's the largest building on any college campus in America like that. Those solar panels were bought in Germany and Japan, not surprisingly -- Germany, a country that has both an energy policy and a manufacturing policy. Seventy-five miles west of there is Toledo, Ohio, where you've been several times, and Toledo has more solar energy manufacturing -- solar manufacturing jobs than any city in America.
It begs the question of two things in terms of manufacturing policy and energy policy. We have all kinds of things in so many of our states -- manufacturing wind turbine components and solar panel components -- but we're the only major industrial country in the world without a manufacturing policy. And every rich country in the world has one. We don't.
I know what you're doing with Ron Bloom in the White House and other things, but how do we get there? How do we -- when we read these articles in the paper that China is just exploding in terms of wind turbine manufacturing and solar panel manufacturing -- how do we rebuild our manufacturing sector with a manufacturing policy, combined with an energy policy that gets us there?
THE PRESIDENT: I hope people had a chance to read that article that was in The New York Times I guess last Sunday, talking about how China is not waiting, it is moving. And already the anticipation is, is that they will lap us when it comes to clean energy.
Now, they're not a democracy and so they don't debate. (Laughter.) And there are no filibuster rules. And so obviously over the long term a system that allows for robust debate and exchange of ideas is going to produce a better result. I believe that. But we have to understand that when it comes to some key issues like energy, we are at risk of falling behind.
We've already fallen behind, but it's not irrevocable because we still have the best research, we still have potentially the best technology, we've got the best universities, the best scientists, and as I said, we've got the most productive workers in the world. But we've got to bring all those things together into a coherent whole.
Now, I think there are a couple of elements to this. One, in terms of manufacturing generally -- you just mentioned Ron Bloom, who we put in charge of a manufacturing task force, is just issuing now a report to me about the direction we need to go to have some coordination when it comes to manufacturing.
Now, this is not some big bureaucratic top-down industrial policy; it is figuring out how do we coordinate businesses, universities, government, to start looking at where are our strategic opportunities, and then making those investments, filling holes that exist so that we can be competitive with what China is doing or what Germany is doing or what Spain is doing.
And my hope is, is that during the course of this year we're going to be able to work with all 50 senators, because all of you have a stake in this, to just see where are our manufacturing opportunities and where can we fill -- plug some holes in order to make sure that we're competitive internationally.
Specifically on clean energy, we know that's an opportunity. I continue to believe, and I'm not alone in this, that the country that figures out most rapidly new forms of energy and can commercialize new ideas is going to lead the 21st century economy. I think that is our growth model. (Applause.)
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