Congress Authorizes $43.3B in Science and Technology Spending

After months of negotiations, the House and Senate have approved the most significant bill in years to bolster U.S. research. The America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science (COMPETES) Act authorizes over $43 billion in new federal spending over the next three years, which will support U.S. math and science education and federal research agencies. In fact, the legislation would double the budget authorizations of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratory activities.

 

Past issues of the SSTI Weekly Digest have covered the progress of the COMPETES Act (see the April 23, 2007 and June 20, 2007 issues). Earlier this year, both houses of Congress passed legislation that incorporated many of the recommendations provided by the influential National Academies report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. The current, reconciled bill, passed by the House and Senate last Thursday, contains many provisions that directly result from the report. These include a requirement that all research agencies contribute funds to multidisciplinary research and that DOE create a program to support researchers early in their careers.

 

The COMPETES Act provides a major increase in funding authorizations for federal research agencies; however, the amounts included in the final bill more closely resemble the authorizations in the more frugal House bill rather than the more generous Senate legislation. Agency and program authorizations affected by the bill include:

• NSF - $22.1B authorized over three years
• NSF EPSCoR - $401M authorized over three years
• NIST - $2.65B authorized over three years
• NIST MEP - $363.8M authorized over three years
• NIST TIP - $372M authorized over three years

The legislation establishes several new federal programs to encourage innovation and commercialization. The new NIST Technology Innovation Program will replace the existing Advanced Technology Program by providing competitive grants to small- and medium-sized businesses commercializing a critical new technology. Single companies may receive up to $3 million over three years, while joint ventures may be eligible for $9 million over five years. The bill also creates a new ARPA-like program within DOE to develop technologies that help overcome the country's long-term energy challenges.

 

President Bush is expected to sign the COMPETES Act, despite the Administration's strong reservation about some aspects of the legislation, including ARPA-E. In a statement following the initial passage of the Senate bill, the president argued that the ARPA-E program would redirect resources from basic research priorities at DOE. The current bill omits several of the measures that had originally drawn the ire of the Administration, including a requirement that all federal science agencies set aside 8 percent of their R&D budget for novel, pan-disciplinary research.

 

The American Institute of Physics plans to run a series of articles in its FYI science policy news bulletin examining the details of the new legislation and its likely implications for U.S. scientific research. The latest issue of FYI is available at http://www.aip.org/fyi/.



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