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News and updates

“CHIPS Plus” Bill Passed by Senate

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By a vote of 64 to 33, the Senate adopted this afternoon the “CHIPS Plus” legislation.  While much of the press attention has been focused on the provisions related to semiconductor chips in the 1,000-plus page bill, most of the legislation is focused on the broader scientific research enterprise.  Although the legislation addresses, among other agencies, the Department of Energy, NASA, and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, the language on the National Science Foundation has been of the most interest to a significant portion of the academic community.

For example, the bill would authorize a new Technology, Innovation, and Partnership Directorate at the NSF, which would be charged with emphasizing applied research and commercialization.  Another set of provisions would greatly expand the scope of the ESPCOR program and require NSF, to the great extent practicable, to allocate 20 percent of all NSF research and education funds to institutions in EPSCOR states by FY2029; the bill calls for the set-asides to start at 15.5 percent starting in FY2023.  In the most recent year, about 13-14 percent of all funds went to such institutions.  

A section-by-section of the summary is available here.

The proponents of the legislation hope that the House will take it up before recessing for August this Friday.

First Package of Funding Bills Adopted by House

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Yesterday, by a vote of 220 to 207, the House adopted its first set of appropriations bills for FY2023, which starts October 1. The package, H.R.8294, includes six of the twelve spending measures:  Transportation-HUD; Agriculture; Energy and Water; Financial Services; Interior and Environment; and Military Construction/Veterans Affairs.  These bills are considered relatively uncontroversial.

Leadership of the House and the Appropriations Committee are currently strategizing on how or whether to move the other bills that have historically served as venues for debates on more controversial issues and provisions, such as those related to abortion and guns.  

While all twelve bills have at least gone through the committee process in the House, it appears at this point that the Senate will likely bypass that part of the legislative process altogether.  It is expected that the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Patrick Leahy of Vermont will release the Senate versions of the bills in relatively short order and potentially seek ways to move them without committee action.  There still are disagreements between Leahy and Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the committee, on a number of details regarding the FY2023, prompting the chairman to create some movement.

 

 

 

 

Biden to Officially Nominate Prabhakar as Head of OSTP

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It had been previously reported that Dr. Arati Prabhakar was the leading candidate to take over as the head of the White House OSTP. Today, the White House officially announced that President Biden intends to nominate her to become the next Director of OSTP. She previously served as the head of NIST under President Clinton and the director of DARPA under President Obama. If confirmed, she will also assume the position of Chief Science Advisor for Science and Technology to the President.

FY2023 Spending Bills Set to Start Moving This Week

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The FY2023 appropriations season is set to kick off this week in the House with a number of Appropriations subcommittees scheduled to take up their respective bills.

Of the bills set to be marked up this week, the defense bill is of the most interest. While the text of the bill has been published, the accompanying report, which contains the details about the measure, is not yet available. We will provide details about this, and other, appropriations measures as they become available.