Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Energy R&D

House Appropriations Process Marches On

Posted on

The FY2021 appropriations process continues to march on in the House, for now, with two more bills slated for committee action today. This afternoon, the Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the Labor-HHS-Education and Energy and Water Development bills.

Labor-HHS-Education

As part of the  overall level of $47 billion for NIH, the Labor-HHS-Education bill would fund:

  • HIV/AIDS Research at $3.1 billion
  • Alzheimer’s research at $2.9 billion

In addition, AHRQ would be funded at $343 million

Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) Title VII health professions and Title VIII nursing  programs would be funded at $512.5 million and $270.0 million, respectively.

The Labor-HHS report also includes the following language with respect to the reporting of foreign gifts that meet certain criteria:

Disclosure of Foreign Gifts and Contracts.—The Committee reminds colleges and universities receiving Federal funds that section 117 of the HEA requires institutions to disclose certain gifts from or contracts with foreign entities and that the Department makes such information publicly available on its website. The Committee directs the Department to work with institutions to improve the reporting process. Disclosure requirements increase transparency and help protect our national security and academic integrity.

In addition to the funding levels for the programs we reported on last week, the House bill would also fund Title VI International Education programs at $80.3 million (an increase of $4.2 million), GAANN at $24.0 million (an increase of $1 million), and the Institute of Education Sciences at $630.5 million (an increase of $7 million).

Energy and Water

The Energy and Water Development bill under consideration today calls for $2.85 billion for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EER&E) programs, an increase of $58 million.  Within EER&E, renewable energy programs would see a cut of $4 million and would be supported at $638 million.

The bill calls for ARPA-E to be funded at $1.02 billion, which represents an increase of $35 million.

The Office of Science would see $7.05 billion under this bill, an increase of $50 million.  Following programs within Science would be funded in the following manner:

  • Advanced Scientific Computing–  $1.02 billion (+$35 million)
  • Basic Energy Sciences– $2.24 billion (+$29 million)
  • Biological and Environmental Research–  $760 million (+$10 million)
  • Fusion– $680 million (+$9 million)
  • High Energy Physics– $1.08 billion (+$5 million)
  • Nuclear Physics– $715 million (+$2 million)

 

Michael Kratsios Appointed to Key Defense Research Position

Posted on

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has named Michael Kratsios to be Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Until now, Kratsios has been serving as the White House Chief Technology Officer, and will replace former-NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in his new role.

Prior to starting at the White House, Kratsios held several positions in the financial sector of increasing scope and responsibility. He has a BA from Princeton and was a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

FY2021 Appropriations Bills Finally Moving

Posted on

With schedules and logistics thrown into complete disarray by COVID-19, progress on the FY2021 spending bills had been stalled.  The logjam has been partially broken, at least for now, in the House, with all 12 bills scheduled for markup this week.

Office of Federal Relations will provide additional details as they become available.  The following are some of the highlights of several different bills so far:

Labor-HHS-Education

National Institutes of Health

  • $47 billion total, an increase of $5.5 billion above current level ($5 billion of the increase is emergency appropriations, meaning the regular appropriation for the agency is $42 billion)

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

  • $343 million, an increase of $500 million

Student Aid

  • Pell Grant Maximum:  $6,945, an increase of $150
  • SEOG:  $880 M ($15-million increase)
  • Federal Work Study:  $1.2 billion ($30-million increase)
  • GEAR UP:  $1.1 billion (an increase of $5 million)

The legislation would also prohibit the Department of Education from implementing its new Title IX regulations.

The text of the bill is available here and a summary of the bill prepared by the committee staff is available here.  The report accompanying the bill, which contains most of the detailed breakdown of funding, is not yet available.

Commerce-Justice-Science

National Science Foundation

Under the bill unveiled earlier today, NSF would be funded at $8.55 billion, an increase of $270 million.  Within NSF:

  • Research and Related Activities Directorate would be funded at $6.97 billion (an increase of $229.9 million
  • Education and Human Resources would be funded at $970 million (an increase of $30 million.

NASA

NASA would be flat-funded at $22.63 billion in the bill.  The bill proposes to divide up the funding, in part, in the following manner:

  • Science:  $7.1 billion (a decrease of $42 million)
  • Aeronautics:  $819 million (an increase of $35 million)
  • Space Tech:  $1.1 billion (level funded)
  • Space Grant:  $50 million (an increase of $2 million)

NOAA

The bill would fund NOAA at $5.45 billion, an increase of $101.9 million.

This is the text of the bill and a summary is available here.

Interior

The current version of the House bill contains $36.76 billion in regular appropriations, an increase of $771 million, and $15 billion in emergency appropriations.

While we have not yet seen further breakdowns for the agency, the USGS is slated to receive an increase of $22 million under this bill.

Both the NEH and the NEA would each be funded at $170 million, an increase of $7.5 million.

The bill text is available here and the summary of the bill is available here.

Energy and Water

Under the the subcommittee-approved bill, the Department of Energy Office of Science would see an increase of $50 million and would be funded at $7.05 billion.

ARPA-E would see an increase of $10 million, while the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program.would be funded at $2.85 billion, an increase of $58 million.

The summary for the bill is available here.

Full Committee

The full Appropriations Committee is slated to take up the Interior bill on Friday and is scheduled to mark up both the Labor-HHS-Education and Energy and Water bills next Monday.

We will provide further details as they become available.

 

Research Community Reiterates Call for At Least $26 Billion for Research

Posted on

In an updated letter to Congressional leadership, associations representing a swath of research institutions reiterated their call to invest at least $26 billion in scientific research in future COVID-19 response bills.  Unlike previous communications, this letter calls out specific funding levels for a number of individual agencies, including:

  • $3 billion for NSF
  • $3 billion for DOD
  • $10 billion for NSF
  • $5 billion for DOE
  • $2 billion for NASA

The letter also calls for additional funds for agencies which have research budgets greater than $100 million, including NOAA and the Institute for Education Science.

The letter is available here.