Bill Foster

I have been a strong supporter of women’s reproductive rights throughout my time in Congress. I believe that the decision to have an abortion is best left as a private decision between a woman and her doctor, not by politicians and the government.

This past June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Clinic that overturned Roe v. Wade: the 1973 case that established a constitutionally protected right to an abortion. This decision dismantled nearly 50 years of settled judicial precedent for reproductive rights, the right to abortion care, and the right to privacy and autonomy. Now, millions of women across the nation are being denied the right to make personal and private health care decisions and, in certain instances, are even criminalized for doing so.

This decision is the culmination of a decades-long attack by extreme politicians to exert power and control over women’s bodily autonomy. I’m proud that Illinois has already codified Roe and preserved access to safe abortion care for generations to come. But, make no mistake: if Republicans take control of Congress, they will make passing a nationwide abortion ban that overrides states like Illinois a priority.

That’s why I’m committed to passing legislation supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans to codify Roe’s protections and other reproductive health freedoms on a national scale. The Women’s Health Protection Act, which I was proud to help pass for a second time in July, would enshrine access to safe abortion care and reproductive health care into federal law.

I was also proud to vote for the Right to Contraception Act, which would place the right to access and use contraception into federal law. Contraception is a core tenant of basic preventive health care that millions of people rely upon, and we must do all we can to protect it from far-right attacks.

As long as I have a vote in Congress, I’ll fight to defend women’s bodily autonomy and the right

for every American to access reproductive health care.

As a businessman who started a manufacturing company that now provides hundreds of good-paying jobs right here in the Midwest, nothing is more important to Bill Foster than the health of manufacturing in America. Bill fought the Trump Administration’s tariffs because they were misguided policy. In the rush to score political points, Republicans endangered the manufacturing recovery engineered by Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration.

As a Democrat, Bill Foster is proud that U.S. Manufacturing Jobs have Increased Under Every Democratic Administration since FDR — and angered at the Loss of Manufacturing Jobs that Has Occurred Under Every Single Republican Administration.

Bill has served on the Financial Services Committee since entering Congress at the start of the financial collapse in March 2008.  As a scientist and businessman, Bill was deeply involved in both the emergency response to rescue our economy, and the structural changes (namely, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act) that set up fair rules of the road to prevent future crises that disproportionately hurt working families.

Bill serves as Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Task Force of the Financial Services Committee.  AI is in the process of disrupting financial services as surely as it disrupts the rest of our economy.  Bill was an AI programmer during his career as a physicist, and some of his main concerns are to make sure that AI does not amplify bias and discrimination already present in our financial system, and to make sure that we safely capture the benefits of AI in areas like preventing identity fraud.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bill was appointed to the Coronavirus Select Committee to oversee the federal response. Bill’s focus on this committee was directing bipartisan oversight of “Operation Warp Speed.” He recognized that getting Americans quick access to COVID-19 vaccines was fundamental to rescuing the American economy.”

Three economic issues recurred throughout Bill’s time in Congress:

1 ) The proper scale of economic stimulus spending required to respond to emergencies like the Financial Crisis of 2008, or the COVID-19 pandemic, balanced against the potential dangers of over-stimulating the economy and driving inflation or an eventual debt crisis.

2) Long term economic stress from technological job displacement, global competition, and ill-considered changes in trade and tax policies that have tilted the playing field against American manufacturers and workers, and caused wealth to be redistributed to those at the very top.

3) How best to shield those at the bottom of the economic ladder from economic crises, structural change, and systemic discrimination.  As the son of a civil rights lawyer who represents a very diverse district, Bill understands the importance that our complex laws and financial regulations have on the real lives of those he represents.

Wise investments in our children’s education are crucial to our long-term economic health. Bill is proud of and grateful for the education that his children received in the public schools of Illinos – and Bill is committed to preserving and strengthening the quality of our schools, community colleges, and universities.

At a time when many are critical of our public educational system – and some are giving up on it entirely – Bill Foster is proud and grateful that the public schools of Illinois provided a strong foundation for the success of his children. (Bill’s son Billy graduated from Harvard Law School and is currently a patent attorney at a large firm in Chicago, and his daughter Christine graduated from Stanford and is currently doing health policy research at Yale). In this time of great economic stress, Bill Foster is committed to preserving and strengthening our public schools so that all of today’s children have those same opportunities that he and his children had. For years, Bill served on the Batavia Foundation for Educational Excellence, and in the U.S. Congress Bill has consistently voted to protect and strengthen our children’s education.

As a scientist and businessman in high-tech manufacturing, Bill Foster understands the benefits of investments in education. In times of economic stress, Bill understands that the worst thing you can do is to compromise your children’s education – this is as short-sighted as eating your seed corn! This is why he proudly took tough votes for measures that would retain thousands of jobs in education, keeping teachers in our children’s classrooms even during the worst of this economic storm.

Longitudinal studies show that the return on investment from education – and particularly early-childhood intervention of at-risk children— pays for itself many times over during the student’s lifetime. Unfortunately, long term investments in education are among the most difficult to defend politically due to the short-term thinking of career politicians that only care about what will help them win the next election, rather than what is best for our country in the decades to come. Short-term thinking, blind ideology, and generational selfishness have gone hand-in-hand over the last decade to generate the economic crisis we are still working through.

A commitment to quality public education runs deep in Bill Foster’s family. Bill’s father was trained as a chemist, but spent much of his career as a professor and civil rights lawyer. Bill’s father was responsible for writing much of the enforcement language behind Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – the part that withheld federal funding from public schools that refused to racially integrate their school systems. Bill’s mother ran a program that helped college students prepare for jobs in the police and criminal justice system – and to help working cops get college educations.

One of the important lessons of this economic downturn was the enduring importance of a well-educated workforce. During the height of the economic crisis, unemployment among those with less than a high school education reached 15%, while unemployment among workers with a college education stayed below 7% and is currently under 3%. American workers are the most productive in the world, in large part because of their high levels of education. In a dynamic economy, continuing education and job training are more important than ever. That is why Bill Foster is a strong supporter of our community colleges which provide education and job training across the spectrum of available jobs.

Because of its importance to society, lowering the cost of education – and particularly higher education – must be a priority. In Congress, Bill Foster voted for initiatives that will significantly lower the cost of student loans, by removing subsidies to private banks that make student loans and, instead, put that money directly in the hands of students. In 2019, Bill also introduced H.R. 4645, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Inclusion Act, to assist those who forgo potentially lucrative careers to serve the public good.

College costs are especially important to vets returning from overseas, and Bill was proud to vote for the GI Bill for 21st Century which will help the men and women who volunteered to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 be able to go to college for free because of their commitment to our country.

College textbooks costs also represent a considerable burden on students – averaging over $1200 per year. To relieve this burden, Bill introduced H.R. 1464 – legislation to provide federal support for the development of Open-Source Textbooks – high quality electronic textbooks that students can download for free from the internet.

Climate change is a worldwide crisis that demands a worldwide solution. As the only physicist in Congress, Bill has been the leader in securing federally-funded research and development into clean, safe, and low-cost energy and storage technologies. These new technologies will allow the world to decarbonize, and they are cheaper than continuing to use fossil fuels. Developing these technologies will allow America and the entire world to decarbonize their economies at a cost they can afford.

Bill was the lead sponsor of the BEST (Better Energy Storage and Technology) Act of 2019, as well as the BEST Act of 2018, which was signed into law. The BEST Act of 2018 allowed for $45 million to be spent in order to develop and prove commercially viable energy storage technology research.

Bill proudly co-sponsored the 100% Clean Economy Act, which called for the U.S. to achieve a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

Our dependence on fossil fuels for energy production has been a growing problem for decades. The answers must be found in sound science, sound economics, technological innovation, and long-term planning. Attacks on science-based energy and environmental policies by past Republican Congressional majorities and Republican presidents have been counterproductive. Republican majorities have shown us that they cannot be trusted to solve this global crisis.

Attacks on science-based energy and environmental policies by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress are dangerous and counterproductive.

Directing energy policy is a complex and broad subject, requiring substantial economic and technological input, as it even seemingly minor policy shifts have significant impacts on our economy and environment. As a scientist and businessman, Bill Foster has the knowledge and experience we need to face the environmental and energy challenges of the 21st Century.

We must aggressively combat climate change, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and promote cleaner and more economical sources of energy. In the near term we must do what we can, within the bounds of what is economically sensible and technically feasible, to begin making progress in these efforts. In the longer term, we must develop new energy technologies that have the best chance of succeeding in the market place.

Funding long-term energy research is crucial to our economic competitiveness and national security. However, during the last decade, we spent more money on the War in Iraq than we have invested in energy research and development throughout the entire history of our country. The Trump Administration’s proposal to transfer $54B from the discretionary budget to the military would have had devastating consequences for national research priorities.

Bill Foster’s principles for a comprehensive energy policy:

Competently manage our existing fossil fuels programs, so that they serve the needs of our country rather than the special interests of international oil companies.

Immediately perform all energy efficiency upgrades that pay for themselves over the lifetime of the equipment – and that are a net plus for our economy.

Expand federal R&D programs on transformative pre-commercial energy research.

Incentivize public-private partnerships for technologies approaching commercialization, after subjecting them to rigorous economic analysis to map out their path to success without subsidies.

With these principles, competently executed, we can have an energy program that is good for our economy in both the short term and long term.

As a member of the House Science Committee, Bill is at the forefront of opposition to House Republicans’ efforts to attack the science behind Climate Change. Bill’s position on global warming rests on three principles:

The observed global warming is dangerous and real.

Global warming is human-caused, so action is imperative.

It is our responsibility to fix this problem in the way that does the least damage our economic growth in the U.S. and throughout the world.

It is crucial that we get a more accurate scientific picture of the situation as soon as possible. If the global warming problem must be corrected within 10 years, this will be much more expensive to “fix” than if we have 70 years to correct the problem. Thus a high priority should be given to measuring and computer-modeling of the Earth’s climate, so that the effects of corrective actions – as well as the price of inaction – can be properly understood. Republican-proposed cuts to budgets to study climate science are likely to have enormous long-run costs to our national economic health.

Recent technological developments in hydro-fracturing underground formations have dramatically increased U.S. reserves of natural gas. This will encourage a continuing shift to natural gas over the next few decades, which will have both economic and environmental benefits as long as the drilling is done in an environmentally responsible manner. Ultimately, however, we cannot drill our way out of the energy crisis.

Thus it is time to invest in clean energy alternatives like solar power, deep-drilled geothermal power, wind energy, and sensible biofuels. The recently established “ARPA-E” program – modeled on the DARPA program that produced the Internet and the GPS system – is already yielding promising new technologies such as grid-scale batteries that allow intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar to be used efficiently with variable consumer loads.

Maintaining a skilled workforce and knowledge base: With the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer and “Sputnik” generation, energy sector professionals will be in increasingly short supply. The lack of competent technical management and regulation appears to have been a significant factor in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. We must make education and training in technical areas of energy production and regulation a national priority, and we must have a plan to address any shortfall in the government and private sector.

There are a large number of energy efficiency improvements and equipment upgrades that reduce carbon pollution and pay for themselves over the lifetime of the equipment – in economists’ terms, have “Positive Net Present Value” (NPV). Many of these have not been done in the free market for a variety of reasons: so-called “market failures,” lack of capital, or simply lack of industry knowledge about best practices. Government programs can reduce these market failures, save consumers money, and produce a cleaner environment.

The Republicans’ War on Efficient Lighting is (so to speak) illuminating. For years, Bill listened to Republicans like Rep. Michelle Bachman and former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry complain about “unelected bureaucrats telling what kind of electric bulbs to buy”. In fact, by setting sensible and achievable efficiency standards the federal government accelerated by years the transition to efficient LED lighting, which is already saving Americans billions of dollars annually in electrical costs. Now, even the Dallas-based American Lighting Association says: “Today, the LED bulb is the most efficient, long lasting, and often the most suitable for home lighting. The new models look very similar to traditional bulbs. The slightly higher up-front cost of these bulbs is mitigated by their very long life.”

What does an optimal energy policy look like? Opportunities for efficiency improvements have been studied by both the McKinsey & Co. as well as the National Academy of Sciences, with similar results. The bottom line is that large classes of these investments are good for both the economy and the environment. McKinsey estimates that with an investment of $500 billion dollars over the next 10 years, we can save our economy $1.2 trillion dollars. This savings is more than enough to support a historically overdue increase in energy research, while still not damaging our economy. This is exactly the approach that Bill Foster supports.

The chart below provides an economic analysis of the cost of carbon pollution reduction with various technologies. Items at left have negative cost, i.e. they are good for our economy.

It is a moral shame that we have so many ways to prevent gun violence in this country, but we have a Congress who has failed to do anything to protect Americans. I support and have voted for numerous pieces of federal legislation to strengthen gun laws and keep weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them. Americans deserve to live, work, and play in communities, homes, schools, and workplaces that are safe from anyone who wants to turn them into places of violence. I support a ban on assault weapons that are designed to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time. 

We also need universal background checks. Over 90 percent of Americans support legislation to require background checks for all gun buyers, whether they are purchasing a firearm from a gun store, from a dealer, at a gun show, or on the internet.

I proudly voted for H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112 which would close loopholes in purchasing firearms and ensure we have universal background checks. It is unconscionable that Senate Republicans have refused to even vote on this critical safety measure for our children and all Americans. 

I support a host of gun safety legislation including the Zero Tolerance for Domestic Abusers Act which would increase protections for victims of domestic abuse, violence, and stalking by barring convicted stalkers from buying or owning firearms and ensuring people who have abused dating partners are prohibited from buying or owning firearms. I also support the e-Gun Violence Restraining Order Act which provides tools to family members to prevent an individual who they fear is a danger to themselves or others from possessing a gun.

As the only Ph.D. physicist in Congress, I also strongly believe that Congress should have the data it needs to make sound policy decisions to prevent gun violence. After decades of debate, Congress recently passed legislation this spring to allow the Centers for Disease Control to conduct research on gun violence so we can know how to stop the traumatic effects it has on too many communities in the United States. I was proud to vote for the FY20 spending package which included federal funding for gun violence prevention research for the first time in decades. 

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare long-standing deficiencies and inequities in our healthcare system. As a member of the Coronavirus Select Committee, Bill will continue oversight of the pandemic response, vaccine production and distribution, and to help accumulate lessons learned to improve our response to future pandemics.

Bill Foster believes that health care is a basic human right and that we should continue moving towards universal coverage. One of Bill’s proudest votes in Congress was for the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Bill supports and has voted for a robust public option because he believes it is vital to provide people with a high-quality, low-cost coverage option that competes with for-profit insurance plans. Bill remains committed to strengthening the ACA and ensuring that life-saving health care is available and affordable for everyone. President Biden’s American Rescue Plan strengthened and deepened the ACA and Medicaid coverage to help ensure that life-saving health care is more available and affordable for everyone. Bill believes this step-by-step approach is the most politically viable path towards universal health care.

Bill continues to be actively involved in lowering costs and improving the quality of healthcare in America. For the last three years, Bill was the lead sponsor of an amendment that would allow HHS to integrate a unique patient identifier into electronic health record systems – a change that would save thousands of lives each year by preventing medical errors and save billions of dollars in health care costs. This policy would also prevent “doctor shopping” for opioids, since patients would be unable to go to multiple doctors to seek out additional opioid prescriptions – a huge step forward in combating the prevalence of opioid addiction. Last year, after three years of effort, this amendment passed unanimously in the House – and with Democratic control of the Senate and White House, we hope to finally get this lifesaving amendment signed into law.

EXPANDING ACCESS TO MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

The next steps forward in our healthcare system must be to promote universal access to coverage by allowing Americans to buy into a public option, and to further expand eligibility and coverage for Medicaid – two policies that Bill has voted for repeatedly and are supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans. Americans should have a choice between private insurance and a public option in accessing quality and affordable health care, which is why Bill is supporting these initiatives. Employers should also have the choice to enroll their employees in a public option, which would lead to competition on the open market and thereby reduce prices.

STRENGTHENING MEDICARE WHILE REDUCING COSTS

Bill is focused on strengthening Medicare to ensure it continues to serve the needs of Americans as they age. One way to do this is to move Medicare away from a fee-for-service model that incentivizes waste and overspending on healthcare and instead encourage payment models focused on paying for quality care and positive health outcomes.

REDUCING PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES

Bill was proud to vote for H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act which passed the House on December 12, 2019. There is no reason Americans should be forced to pay more than people in other countries for the same medication. H.R. 3 would offer major cost savings for more than 500,000 people in the 11th District who have private health insurance, and over 72,000 people enrolled in Medicare Part D. In addition, by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, it will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in cost-savings that will be reinvested to expand Medicare to include vision, dental, and hearing coverage. It’s time that we put a stop to skyrocketing prescription drug prices that are devastating hardworking American families.

REDUCING COSTS VIA LIFE-SAVING MEDICAL RESEARCH

The single most effective thing we can do to control healthcare costs over the long term is to support research and development of life-saving cures for debilitating and expensive diseases. Alzheimer’s will be responsible for one third of Medicare spending by 2050. Diabetes costs Americans $327 billion a year and the majority of that cost is covered by Medicaid, Medicare, and the Veterans Administration. A low-cost cure for either one of these diseases would eliminate budgetary stress on Medicare and Medicaid. For diabetes, recent breakthrough clinical trail results with obesity treatments should be deployed as rapidly and broadly as possible. As the only Ph.D. scientist in Congress, Bill has been at the forefront of protecting research budgets at the National Institutes of Health against the proposed budget cuts from the Trump Administration, and expanding them in the post-COVID era.

The United States is a proud nation of immigrants and we must adhere to the promise of the American Dream. Our diversity is what makes us strong. Unfortunately, our immigration system is outdated and presents unnecessary challenges to immigrants who want to legally come to the United States. Bill supports President Biden’s reversal of the Trump Administration’s inhumane and counterproductive immigration policies, and his focus on alleviating the conditions which drive waves of immigrants to leave their home countries.

Bill has been a longtime supporter of the DREAM Act, first voting for the bill in 2010 and again in 2019. Children brought to the U.S. by their parents deserve a fair chance at American citizenship and the chance to live out the American Dream in the only country many have ever known.

Bill is also supports the 2013 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill that passed the Senate but was denied a vote under the Republican control of John Boehner and Paul Ryan. This commonsense compromise bill would have provided funding for border security while also ensuring we reformed our outdated immigration system. It provided a strict but fair pathway to citizenship for those undocumented residents who were able to pay a modest fine, pay back-taxes, and pass a criminal background check. Bill believes the framework in this bill should be the foundation for a new comprehensive immigration reform package.

Investments in basic scientific research provide some of the highest returns on investment of any that our society can make. As a scientist and successful businessman, Bill Foster believes that keeping the technological pipeline full – from basic research, to technology development, to market driven deployment of advanced manufacturing technologies – is crucial to our country’s long term economic health.

As a scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory for more than 20 years, and an entrepreneur in a successful high-tech manufacturing business before that, Bill Foster understands the long-term benefits of investments in science and technology. Bill has designed and built particle accelerators, integrated circuits, superconducting magnets, computer hardware and software systems used identify the Top Quark (the heaviest known form of matter), and computer systems that control theater lights from Disneyland to the Metropolitan Opera. The company that Bill started with his brother now provides more than 500 manufacturing jobs in the Midwest, and when Bill first ran for Congress, his campaign was endorsed by 31 Nobel Prize winners.

Over time, long-term investments in education and scientific research have provided the highest return on investment of any that our country can make. Studies indicate that over half of our economic growth during the last 50 years is due to investment in science and technology. Medical advances to cure chronic diseases like diabetes will be crucial to controlling future health care costs. And yet, these investments are also difficult to sustain politically due to the short-term incentives for our nation’s political leaders. Career politicians naturally care only about what will help them win the next election, rather than making the long-term investments that may enrich the lives of children but will not pay off for decades. The only solution to this dilemma is electing people like Bill Foster who value the long-term interests of our country above those of the political expediency that drive mindless cuts to investments in science and technology.

In the business world, CEOs of publicly held companies are judged by quarterly profits, so they also have little incentive to invest in long-term scientific research. Over time, this has caused the decay of institutions like Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and the great privately-funded scientific laboratories that helped bring our country to the technological leadership of the world. We have to restore incentives that will make this sector of our economy bloom again – like the efforts Bill has strongly supported to make the R&D tax credit permanent.

Government-funded research has also provided breakthroughs that expand our economy and change our lives: the Internet, non-invasive medical imaging, the Global Positioning System (GPS), and fundamental biochemical research that is producing drugs that we could not have dreamed of a generation ago. And yet, too often the bridge has been missing to successful commercial products from these innovations.

Over the last 30 years, the fraction of GDP devoted to federal funding for the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences has declined at a time when other countries are substantially increasing their own research budgets. Funding at NIH and the biological sciences has fared better but should also expand at a sustainable pace. Bill Foster believes that federally funded scientific research should play an important role in advancing science and technology in the classroom, the laboratory, and the transition to industrial production.

Our country has counterproductive student immigration policies that discourage the world’s best and brightest from setting up shop in America – even after the U.S. taxpayer has helped pay for their education. While countries like Canada have a deliberate national policy that results in 56% of immigrants having university degrees, the U.S. has no policy and the corresponding number for the United States is less than 10%.

The patent system in the United States, for decades the engine of unparalleled innovation and growth, has not been upgraded to keep pace with either technology or the rising flood of patent applications from around the world. Ideologically-driven underfunding of the Patent Office has led to patent backlog of many months, creating delays and uncertainties that cripple innovation and causing many companies to abandon the patent system entirely.

The list goes on. Stem cell research has suffered from opposition that has no basis in science and has immobilized important sectors of cutting-edge research. In the energy field, special-interest lobbying by corporate owners of incumbent technologies has frozen progress on new energy technology. For decades, our country has gone without either a manufacturing policy or an innovation policy. In a Congress dominated by lawyers and career politicians, good scientific, technological and business sense has been lacking – all resulting in the slow deterioration of the economic competitiveness of the United States.

Prior to the 2010 elections, these mistakes were beginning to be reversed. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided crucial funding for long-neglected scientific infrastructure. The Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Act passed by the House in 2009 provides a coherent framework for funding Science and Math education. The America COMPETES Act authorized a doubling of science funding over 10 years.

All of these efforts have come under continuing attack since the anti-science waves of the 2010 and 2016 elections, and support for science was a major part of Democratic victories in 2018. Making effective arguments for science policy means the technology has to be understood and the details matter. To make sure that these policies are implemented in a rational and cost-effective manner, there is no substitute for having scientists and businessmen like Bill Foster in Congress.