President Obama has announced the nomination of Subra Suresh as Director of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Suresh will undergo a Senate confirmation process in the coming weeks. A copy of Dr. Suresh’s biography follows. Continue reading “President Nominates New NSF Director”
News and updates
This Week on Capitol Hill, June 1-4
Congress is in recess this week. The Senate will resume Monday, June 7th at 2:00 pm and the House will resume Tuesday, June 8th at 2:00 pm.
Education Provisions in Tax Extension Bill
Before leaving for the Memorial Day congressional recess, the House passed a package of tax “extenders” (HR 4213) by a vote of 215 to 204. It retroactively extended a number of expired provisions of interest to the higher education community, including: the tuition deduction, the ability to “rollover” Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) without penalty; and, research and development tax credits. The bill would also extend the Build America Bonds (BABs) program through the end of 2012, with the subsidy rate decreasing to 30 percent those bonds issued in 2012.
Education Jobs Funds Uncertain
In April, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the Keep Our Educators Working Act of 2010 –cosponsored by Senator Patty Murray and 28 other Democratic Senators. The legislation provided for $23 billion to be distributed to governors to save or create K-12 and higher education jobs. According to the formula in the bill, the State of Washington would receive $478.3 million –roughly 6,500 jobs .
Senator Harkin sought to attach the jobs provisions to a supplemental appropriations bill that is currently moving through Congress, primarily for military operations and disaster relief. However, efforts to include the education provisions in the Senate version have ceased, as there are not 60 votes present to move forward. Several Democratic Senators, including Washington’s Maria Cantwell, and the entire Republican caucus have expressed concerns that the education provisions would add to the deficit. Continue reading “Education Jobs Funds Uncertain”
House Passes COMPETES Act Reauthorization
After a couple of procedural setbacks, the House of Representatives passed a 5-year reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act on Friday May 28th. The legislation provides for 7% annual increases to the budgets of the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy Office of Science, and National Institutes of Standards and Technology -keeping them on a path to double funding by 2016. Sights are now set on the Senate, which aims to pass a companion bill by the July 4th congressional recess.
One issue of concern in the bill for the university research community is an amendment approved by the House that links public universities’ response to information requests from their labor unions with their ability to collect facilities and administrative costs for their research grants. The UW Office of Federal Relations is working towards a modification or elimination of the language in the final bill that emerges.
House Science and Technology Committee Statement on COMPETES Passage