Yesterday, President Trump signed S. 3971, the “Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act.” This legislation reauthorizes the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs through 2031. Since 1982, the SBIR and STTR programs, known together as America’s Seed Fund, have invested more than $81 billion into over 34,000 small businesses. Authorization had lapsed as of September 30, freezing billions of dollars in funding across multiple agencies, as Congress debated new program reforms. This five-year extension is the longest extension in the program’s history. The legislation reforms include significant security screening expansion, proposal submission caps, and a “strategic breakthrough” award mechanism allowing for larger award amounts.
Category: Federal Agency Developments
Trump delays naming new CDC Director
The White House remains on a time crunch to name a permanent director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Under federal law, Senate-confirmed positions have a 210-day limit on being led by acting replacements, a deadline which passed last night. The Health Department announced yesterday that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya will continue to oversee the CDC until the agency has a permanent director, adding that Health Secretary RFK Jr. and Chris Klomp are leading the search.
President Trump has not yet announced his pick, as the administration struggles to find a nominee that aligns with Secretary Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, while avoiding enough of his vaccine stances to be able to win Senate confirmation.
The administration’s health agenda received a major blow last week when a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked several of Kennedy’s vaccine policies from being implemented. Ruling on a lawsuit brought by six prominent medical organizations, Judge Brian Murphy said that the federal government had not based its decisions on science in limiting Covid shots and revising the childhood vaccine schedule. The ruling also reversed all decisions made by panelists that Kennedy had appointed to the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. An appeal is expected, but lawyers for the plaintiffs celebrated this as “a significant victory for public health, evidence-based medicine, the rule of law, and the American people.”
Jim O’Neill nominated as NSF director
President Trump has nominated Jim O’Neill to serve as Director of the National Science Foundation. His name was among a list of nominations sent to the Senate yesterday morning. O’Neill was removed from his position as deputy secretary of HHS last month as part of a broader restructuring, which also saw Jay Bhattacharya named acting CDC director. The NSF has been without a permanent leader since last April, when director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned as the Trump administration cut hundreds of research grants and proposed massive budget cuts.
O’Neill served as a senior HHS official during the George W. Bush administration, before moving to the private sector, where he worked closer with Peter Thiel. He was the managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management and also served as CEO of the Thiel Foundation, before joining the second Trump administration as deputy HHS secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, O’Neill would be the first non-scientist to lead the NSF.
Congress Home for the Holidays
After a busy week, Senators huddled on the floor Thursday night as they made an eleventh-hour attempt to find a path forward on bringing up a bundle of five bills or minibus for consideration before the end of 2025. No agreement to move forward was reached after Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both of Colorado, announced they would hold up the package after White House OMB director Russ Vought’s decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is based in Colorado.
The package under consideration in the Senate would fund the Departments of Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce (including NOAA), Health and Human Services (including NIH), Transportation, Labor and Interior, along with the EPA and NSF.
A few Republican Senators have held the bill from moving forward but released a hold after Senate leadership agreed to an amendment vote on stripping earmarks in the legislation. The Colorado hold is new to the OMB decision.
The Senate will resume consideration and negotiations in January.
NSF Reorganizes
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been reorganized. The announcement first came on Mon, Dec 15. NSF MPS Directorate sent out this newsletter this week outlining the changes.
The Directorate structure is unchanged. Within each Directorate, Divisions are replaced by Sections. Each Section has a strict limit of 8 employees.