That screeching sound you hear may be America's high-tech industry grinding to a halt. That is because companies in this sector that rely on the innovative skills of foreignborn professionals are facing undue hiring hardships proposed by the Department of Labor.

 There are not enough qualified U.S. pro-fessionals available to meet the rapid growth that has characterized the American high- tech industry. Recent research indicates that the number of B.S. degrees awarded in com-puter science and math fell 29 percent from 1985 to 1995. The number of   undergraduate engineering degrees fell 16 percent from 1985 to 1997, and computer and information sciences experienced a 42 percent drop in degrees awarded. Yet, it is expertise in these very areas that is needed by businesses, par-ticularly the high-tech sector, which has grown by almost 300,000 since 1990. In order to stay competitive, businesses must turn to foreign professionals who possess this  knowledge. 

In the national capital area alone, the repercussions of such a shortage are staggering. The "Digital Capital" area is short 23,000 technology workers.

As the average salary of each worker is more than $57,000 per year, our area is missing more than $1 billion in wages that would otherwise be circulating in our economy.

Despite the billions of dollars spent annually by companies to formally and informally train their work force, a void still exists between professionals available in the U.S. work force and the needs of employers. Often employers' needs are immediate; they cannot afford to wait for work force training or retraining while positions remain unfilled. America may be losing thousands of jobs each year because businesses cannot fill these positions.

And now, American companies that rely on temporary foreign-born workers to bring the skill and innovation that enables them to expand and hire more Americans, are coming under fire from the Luddites at the Department of Labor.

Last year, Congress decided to increase the yearly cap on H-113, or skilled worker, visas, which allow businesses to hire highly skilled, foreign-born workers for specific jobs, particularly in high-tech industries, for which enough qualified Americans cannot be found. Previously, 65,000 H- 1B visas were granted each year for foreign professionals to work in the United States on a temporary basis to help alleviate this professional shortage. Last year's legislation will raise the cap on H-1B visas granted per year to 115,000 in 1999 and 2000, and to 107,500 in 2001.

The Department of Labor, however, proposes regulations for the H- I B program that will impose unnecessary burdens on employers, exact unrealistic requirements, and go beyond the statutory authority granted to the department by Congress. H-1B employers, get ready for Labor Secretary Alexis Herman to be your new personnel manager.

 In order to obtain an H- I B visa for a worker, the employer must file an application con-taining a number of attestations that the secre-tary of  labor is charged with reviewing for " completeness and obvious inaccuracies, " In its proposed regulations, however, the Department of Labor gives  the secretary lee-way to review each application substantively, clearly going against the requirements estab-lished by law. Additionally, the department proposes to make an unbelievable leap outside its bounds of authority by dictating the wage structure of any employer that files the proper paperwork required to obtain visas for H-1B employees. The law does not require, nor did Congress intend in last year's legislation, that American employers be required to create or implement objective wage systems in order to hire employees needed by companies. Rather, the law obligates that employers pledge not to pay foreign workers less than the prevailing wage for a particular occupation, or the actual wage for similarly qualified workers in the job in question.

Since the H-1B visa came into existence in 1990, the Department of Labor has found only eight willful violations committed by employers, an average of one per year. In light of paucity of violations, the Clinton administration's grasp at micromanaging America's businesses could only be driven by the unions.

Additionally, Labor's regulations would impose unduly time-consuming record-keeping requirements on employers that need to foreign-born employees. The Clinton Labor Department would obligate businesses to keep records on more than 27 types of information and records about the company, its policies, its practices, and its employees, some of which are duplicative of record-keeping requirements that Congress explicitly enacted in the Paperwork Reduction Act.

While keeping this documentation might be good advice for a cautious employer who wishes to prepare in advance a defense to all possible complaints that might arise, Labor is entirely without authority to impose this as regulatory requirements.

The larger thematic problem with Labor's proposed regulation is that it adopts a guilty until proven innocent threshold for employers that contravenes both the letter and the spirit of the statute. The enforcement system set forth by Congress is primarily complaint-driven, meaning the. department will investigate only after receiving a complaint alleging wrongdoing.

Labor's proposal goes much further. Given that the department would have to receive a complaint of employer violation, the paperwork and record-keeping requirements are nothing more than a tax on the high-tech industry, in the form of increased compliance costs and staff time.

While Vice President Al Gore has painted himself as a "high-tech" politician, interested in ideas and innovations, his administration is pandering to xenophobic. union fears of foreign-born workers and at the same time stifling American competitiveness. Foreign-born professionals are an important part of the American economy and a significant reason that. our high-tech companies are the best in the world. Nearly every important high-tech company in America can document vital research development and job creation that has occurred as a direct result of hiring H- 1B professionals.

To set up roadblocks and create undue hardships on businesses seeking to hire qualified personnel will cause America to fall behind.

The Department of Labor's proposed regulations on hiring foreign-born workers, if implemented, would undermine innovation in our economy and reduce employment and growth opportunities for Americans.