Long Duration Storage Shot Summit

Congressman Bill Foster is a scientist and businessman representing the 11th Congressional District of Illinois, a position he’s held since 2013. He also represented the 14th Congressional District of Illinois from 2008 to 2011. He is the only PhD physicist in Congress. 

Bill serves on the House Financial Services Committee where he advocates for consumer protections and an economy that works for everyone. In response to the Great Recession, he helped create several important reforms in the financial services and housing markets, including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Bill serves as chairman of the Financial Services Committee’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence.  

He also serves on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he has fought for evidence-based policies and forward-thinking approaches to some of our country’s most pressing issues, including climate change and energy innovation. He is a champion for sustained federal funding for scientific research.

Bill serves as the chairman of the Science Committee's Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee, which is empowered to investigate and oversee federal scientific research.

In the wake of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, Bill was named to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus. The Select Subcommittee is charged with examining the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, including the use of taxpayer funds to mitigate the public health and economic consequences of the pandemic.

Bill's business career began at age 19 when he and his younger brother co-founded Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc., a company that now manufactures over half of the theater lighting equipment in the United States.

Before he became a Member of Congress, Bill worked as a high-energy physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). He was a member of the team that discovered the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter. He also led the teams that designed and built several scientific facilities and detectors still in use today, including the Antiproton Recycler Ring, the latest of Fermilab's giant particle accelerators. 

Bill lives in Naperville with his wife Aesook, who is also a physicist. Bill has two grown children, Billy and Christine. Bill's father was a civil rights lawyer who wrote much of the enforcement language behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In January 2013, Angus King was sworn in as Maine’s first Independent United States Senator, filling the same seat once held by storied Maine leaders Edmund Muskie, George Mitchell, and Olympia Snowe.

A strong believer in the need for greater bipartisan dialogue and relationship building, Senator King is proud to join the long line of thoughtful, independent leaders from the State of Maine, and he works hard every day to bring Republicans and Democrats together to find common-sense solutions for Maine and America. He is a proven consensus-builder who “calls ‘em like he sees ‘em”, putting civility and respect ahead of political ideology.

Senator King is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and the Committee on Rules and Administration. He has made it a priority not to miss Committee hearings, earning him praise from his colleagues and the reputation as a workhorse in the Senate. The late Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who served as Armed Services Chairman, once called Senator King “one of the most serious and hard-working members” of the Committee.

In his time in the Senate, Senator King has worked to strengthen America’s national security, conducted critical oversight of the nation’s Intelligence Community, supported common-sense budget priorities that promote prosperity and reduce the national debt, fought the national opioid and heroin epidemic, coordinated efforts to revitalize Maine’s forest economy, advocated for policies that contribute to cleaner, cheaper energy and mitigate climate change, railed against the corrosive effect of unchecked money in politics, fought to improve access to health care, worked to strengthen the government’s support of veterans, and promoted increased access to critical community resources like rural broadband.

Senator King has achieved significant legislative victories since taking office. He led efforts to draft and pass the Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013, which averted drastic increases in student loan interest rates, saved students across the country more than $50 billion in interest payments, and set the program on a path to long-term financial stability. In 2018, Senator King successfully included a number of provisions in the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, legislation focused on improving the federal government’s response to the opioid epidemic. The legislation, which passed overwhelmingly, included language backed by Senator King to make medication-assisted treatment more readily available and adjust federal restrictions to allow residential treatment facilities to increase treatment capacity. Earlier this year, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, he introduced the Paycheck Protection Flexibility Act to improve the Paycheck Protection Program and provide additional flexibility for business owners who’ve received PPP loans; the legislation was signed into law in June.

A leading voice on the importance of improving America’s cybersecurity, Senator King was selected by Congressional leadership to co-chair the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan effort established by Congress to review the threats facing America in cyberspace and develop a forward looking plan on how to defend ourselves against cyber threats. The commission, which consisted of bipartisan members of Congress, top Executive Branch officials, and nonpartisan industry leaders, laid out more than 75 recommendations to improve the cybersecurity of U.S. critical infrastructure and prepare the nation for future challenges in an increasingly digital world.

In fact, it is in small working groups like this that Senator King has focused much of his work. Senator King is committed to working across the aisle in small, bipartisan working groups that bridge partisan divides to address the challenges that face the nation. He co-founded the Former Governors Caucus, which brings together the Senate’s former Governors to chart pragmatic approaches to solutions, as well as the Senate Arctic Caucus, which hones in on Maine and America’s growing interest in the Arctic. Senator King also tries to informally bridge the partisan divide in Washington by frequently bringing his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to his home for barbeque dinners, where political talk is banned and the focus is getting to know one another. The bonds that are formed through these relationships often lay the foundation for successful legislation.

Prior to taking office, Senator King served as the 72nd Governor of Maine. During his two terms in the Blaine House, he focused on economic development and job creation.  Then-Governor King also achieved significant reforms in education, mental health services, land conservation, environmental protection, and the delivery of state services. He was re-elected in 1998 by one of the largest margins in Maine’s history.

Senator King is married to Mary Herman and has four sons, Angus III, Duncan, James, and Ben, one daughter, Molly, and six grandchildren. He attended Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia Law School. In his free time, he enjoys exploring the Maine outdoors, either on his Harley or with his family in their camper.

Prior to his nomination as Deputy Secretary, Turk was the Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), where he focused on helping countries around the world tackle their clean energy transitions. He also directed reports on the digitalization of energy systems, the future of clean hydrogen, and a project tracking progress on a wide range of clean energy technologies.

During the Obama-Biden Administration, Turk coordinated international technology and clean energy efforts at DOE. During this time, he helped spearhead the launch of Mission Innovation—a global effort to enhance clean energy innovation.

When people in Washington want to solve a problem, they turn to the senior United States Senator from Maine, Susan Collins. First elected in 1996, Senator Collins has earned a national reputation as an effective legislator who works across party lines to seek consensus on our nation’s most important issues. For the past seven consecutive years, Senator Collins has ranked as the most bipartisan member of the U.S. Senate by the Lugar Center and Georgetown University.

Senator Collins ranks eleventh in Senate seniority and is the most senior Republican woman.  She serves on the Appropriations Committee, and she is the Ranking Member of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee.  She also serves on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; the Aging Committee; and the Intelligence Committee.

Known for her Maine work ethic, Senator Collins has never missed a vote in her 24 years in office.  In June 2019, she cast her 7,000th consecutive roll call vote.  She holds the longest perfect voting record in the history of the U.S. Senate.

Senator Collins is recognized as a skillful legislator, which is one reason why Elle magazine named her one of the most powerful women in Washington.  Her record demonstrates significant legislative accomplishments in such critical areas as homeland security, national defense, disaster response, education, business development, health care, and issues of particular interest to our nation’s seniors.  Along with Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Collins authored a major overhaul of our nation’s intelligence community after the September 11^th attacks, improving its effectiveness while protecting civil liberties. She was also the lead Republican in the successful effort to repeal the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law in December 2010.   Senator Collins is the founder of the Common Sense Coalition, a bipartisan group of senators who wrote the framework of the plan that ended the 16-day government shutdown in October 2013 as well as the shutdown in February 2018. 

Senator Collins has had a long-standing interest in health care. In 1997, she founded the Senate Diabetes Caucus and has led the effort to more than triple federal funding for diabetes research. As the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer ’s Disease, she has worked to increase funding for Alzheimer’s research and to strengthen support for family caregivers.  She is also a tireless advocate for education and has visited and read to children at hundreds of schools across Maine.  A champion for America’s small businesses, Senator Collins is proud of the 100 percent rating she receives from the National Federation of Independent Business, our nation’s leading small business organization.  At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Senator Collins co-authored the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provided a lifeline to millions of small businesses across the country and supported tens of millions of jobs.  Senator Collins received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society for her work to support veterans, and she received the Navy’s highest public service award from the Secretary of the Navy for her tireless advocacy of shipbuilding programs. 

Constituent service has always been one of Senator Collins’ top priorities. During her time in the Senate, she has helped tens of thousands of Mainers resolve issues with federal agencies at six constituent service centers throughout Maine. 

Senator Collins was born December 7, 1952, and raised in Caribou, Maine, where her family runs a sixth-generation lumber business, founded by her ancestors in 1844.  A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Lawrence University, she is married to Thomas A. Daffron and resides in Bangor, Maine.