Congress, President Bush Debate Federal R&D, STEM Support

Over the past few months, Congress has been at work on a package of measures to address the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. Two similar, yet distinct, competitiveness bills are currently being reconciled in conference between the House and the Senate. President Bush has voiced several objections to both the Senate and House bills and may even be prepared to veto the legislation if a compromise cannot be reached. Limiting that option for the president is the overwhelming bipartisan support both measures received in both chambers of Congress.

 

The Senate version of the legislation, also known as the America COMPETES Act (S 761), passed overwhelmingly by an 88-8 margin earlier this year (see the May 23, 2007 issue of the Digest). A few weeks later, the House passed its own measure, HR 2272 by voice vote, which combined five separate bills that were previously approved. Titled the 21st Century Competitiveness Act of 2007, HR 2272 packaged together the bills as a necessary step in order to move to conference with the Senate.

 

The unified House bill prescribes a major increase in federal funding for R&D and STEM education, including doubling the funding for NSF, the DOE Office of Science, and NIST over the next three years. A separate House bill, HR 364 which has not yet passed, calls for the creation of ARPA-E, an experimental research agency at DOE modeled on the half-a-century-old DARPA program at the Department of Defense. The Senate legislation includes the creation of this agency within the main bill.



SSTI has prepared a brief comparison of the House and Senate legislation:



  Senate Bill (S 761) House Resolution (HR 2272) NSF $33.6B authorized over four years $21B authorized over three years NSF EPSCoR $125M in FY2008   NIST $3.27B authorized over four years $2.42B authorized over three years MEP $501M authorized over four years $367M authorized over three years EPSCoT Reestablishes program   TIP   Creates the Technology Innovation Program (TIP) as a replacement for ATP ARPA-E Creates DARPA-like program for energy research  

In response to both the Senate and House versions, the Administration has prepared a critique to components of these bills. Concerning the Senate version, while the Administration agrees with the final goals of enabling future economic competitiveness, it “believes that the bill does not prioritize basic research, authorizes excessive and inappropriate spending, and creates unnecessary bureaucracy and education programs.”

 

For example, the Administration “strongly objects” to the creation of the ARPA-E because it believes the program would drain resources from basic research priorities within DOE. Additionally, it asserts it is unknown if DARPA, as created for the military sector, could be replicated within the energy sector. In another example, the Administration objects to science and math education programs through EPSCoR or DOE, as they may replicate efforts in other parts of the government, in addition to being too costly. The Administration claims that the president’s proposals though the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) (see the Feb. 13, 2006 issue of the Digest) would cost $9 billion less over time than the Senate’s proposal – pegged at $61 billion over the next four years.

 

The entire text, the schedule of passage, and additional information about the bills sent to conference can be found through the Library of Congress. The Senate’s version (S 761) can be accessed at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.00761: and the combined House version (HB 2272) can be accessed at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR02272:.

 

The reaction of the Administration to these bills is availale through the Office of Management and Budget at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/110-1/index-date.html. Critiques of S 761 and three House bills that are components of the larger House bill in conference, which are HB 362, HB 363, and HB1868, are available.



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