mr. chairman , we are in favor of the amendment , of course , and i just want to point out that the davis-waxman amendment strikes section 978 , which i will have the opportunity maybe at a later time to go into in more depth , but it strikes out `` improved coordination and management of civilian science and technology programs '' which would create two new senate-confirmed assistant secretary positions within the department of energy , increasing the total number of senate-confirmed assistant secretaries in the department to eight . 
the proposed positions include one for science and one for nuclear energy . 
now , some of the talking points for this are , among others , there are a good many reasons to talk for this department . 
the department has significant management challenges . 
it is not the solution to add two more senate-confirmed assistant secretaries to further bog down the situation . 
the davis-waxman amendment appropriately recognizes we do not need more senate-confirmed assistant secretaries . 
