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What’s Ahead
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| House Democrats celebrated the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act on July 29, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) signed the bill ahead of sending it to President Biden. Standing immediately behind the sign are, from left, Pelosi and retiring House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), who played a central role in shaping the legislation. (Image credit – Office of Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY)) |
Landmark ‘CHIPS and Science Act’ Awaits Biden’s Signature
Last week, Congress passed landmark semiconductor funding and innovation policy legislation that went by many names over the past year and a half before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) finally branded it as the CHIPS and Science Act. The Senate passed the bill on July 27 on a vote of 64 to 33 and the House passed it the next day on a vote of 243 to 187. The bill would likely have cleared the House by a larger margin, but the chamber’s Republican leadership whipped votes against it after Democrats unexpectedly announced following the Senate vote they were advancing a partisan spending and tax reform bill that includes hundreds of billions of dollars for climate mitigation measures. Senate Republicans had previously indicated such a move would lead them to withdraw their support for the CHIPS and Science Act. President Biden is expected to sign the bill into law soon.
Once signed, the act will almost immediately provide $52 billion to subsidize manufacturing and to fund R&D initiatives in support of the semiconductor industry, and it will establish a semiconductor tax credit program. The act also sets out an ambitious vision for policy across the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy Office of Science, and National Institute of Standards and Technology, and creates a regional technology hub program within the Department of Commerce. The legislation recommends that Congress ramp up the budgets of targeted science programs by billions of dollars over a period of five years, but, in contrast to the semiconductor funding, actual funding for those programs will have to be appropriated through future legislation.
Science Funding Advancing as Part of Partisan Spending Bill
Democrats may bring their new partisan spending and tax reform bill up for a vote in the Senate later this week, using Congress’ budget reconciliation process to circumvent a Republican filibuster. The House is already on its August recess, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the chamber would return next week to send it along to President Biden if the Senate passes it. The contents of the legislation were negotiated in secret by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and are much broader than the healthcare-focused bill Manchin previously indicated was the limit of what he would support at the moment. Amid the $369 billion that the bill would provide over multiple years for climate change mitigation, there is significant funding for facilities and equipment projects overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, specifically:
- $304 million for high energy physics
- $295 million for basic energy sciences
- $280 million for fusion energy
- $217 million for nuclear physics
- $164 million for advanced scientific computing
- $158 million for isotope R&D, and
- $133 million for laboratory infrastructure
The bill also includes $450 million for general plant projects that is divided evenly between the DOE Offices of Nuclear Energy, Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. In addition, within funds for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the bill would boost budgets for weather and climate research and forecasting, including:
- $190 million for high-performance computing and data management
- $150 million for observations, modeling, forecasting, and information dissemination
- $100 million for hurricane hunter aircraft, and
- $50 million for climate research grants
While Democrats have broadly welcomed the revival of efforts to pass partisan spending legislation, which have been moribund since last December, holdouts might yet threaten the bill to further shape its contents. Called the Inflation Reduction Act, the package is designed to provide economic relief, and, if disputes do erupt, it is most likely to be around the legislation’s tax provisions.
Nomination of Arati Prabhakar to Lead OSTP Ready for Floor Vote
This is the last week the Senate is slated to be in session before senators depart for the remainder of the month, and it is possible a floor vote will be scheduled to confirm Arati Prabhakar, President Biden’s nominee to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee advanced her nomination last week on an unexpectedly close partisan vote of 15 to 13, with Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-MS) explaining there had not been enough time to investigate her responses to committee questions on “right to life” issues. Retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) was the only Republican to vote in favor of the nomination. Biden plans to appoint Prabhakar as his science adviser and a Cabinet member, and the Senate has accordingly pursued an expedited confirmation process for her thus far. However, if the nomination is brought to the floor, debate on it would potentially compete for time with equally high priorities such as Democrats’ new partisan spending bill, which will need to go through an extended series of amendment votes before a final vote can be held. The Senate could extend its work beyond this week if that legislation appears poised to pass but needs more time.
Senators to Examine Radio Spectrum Policy Goals
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday on the future of federal radio spectrum management. The Federal Communications Commission manages the allocation of commercial frequency bands and its efforts to open up spectrum for new technologies have led to clashes with other federal agencies over potential interference with services such as weather satellite observations and the GPS system. In an attempt to smooth these frictions, FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which represents federal spectrum users, launched a Spectrum Coordination Initiative this spring and are working to update their 2003 memorandum of understanding. The committee had planned to advance a bill that would require the agencies to update the MOU quadrennially to address “changing technological, procedural, and policy circumstances,” but the vote, originally scheduled for May, was deferred. FCC’s authority to auction spectrum expires in September, which the committee now states is a “unique opportunity” for Congress to weigh in on spectrum priorities and the goals of interagency coordination.
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In Case You Missed It
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| Conceptual art showing the newly revised architecture for the Mars Sample Return mission, comprising one of two helicopters that will be on the mission, the Perseverance rover already on Mars, a lander, an ascent vehicle, and an orbiter. (Image credit – NASA / JPL-Caltech) |
Mars Sample Return Mission Drops Rover, Adds Helicopters
NASA and the European Space Agency announced on July 27 that they have substantially reconfigured their plans for the Mars Sample Return mission they are jointly developing. An ESA-built “fetch” rover that would retrieve samples currently being cached by NASA’s Perseverance rover has now been discarded from the mission in favor of having Perseverance deliver the samples itself. As a backup to Perseverance, the mission will now also carry two helicopters that would fly out to retrieve the samples one at a time. The revised mission concept will obviate the need to construct two separate landers for the mission, which NASA concluded this past spring would be necessary to carry both the fetch rover and the ascent vehicle that will convey the samples from Mars’ surface. In lieu of the fetch rover, ESA will now build a robotic arm attached to the mission’s lander that will transfer the samples from Perseverance to the ascent vehicle.
NASA Science Mission Directorate head Thomas Zurbuchen indicated that the durability of NASA’s rover designs and the extraordinary success of the Ingenuity helicopter accompanying Perseverance persuaded the agency over the past year that the technology needed for the revised mission architecture is sufficiently mature. NASA continues to expect the mission will return the samples to Earth in 2033. The agency had planned to update its estimates for the total cost of the multibillion-dollar mission earlier this summer, based on the two-lander architecture, but now anticipates the mission will pass its next management milestone in October. Aside from its work on Mars Sample Return, ESA has been scrambling to find a new pathway to Mars for its much-delayed Rosalind Franklin rover after breaking off its partnership with Russia on the mission in the wake of that country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia Signals Plans to Eventually Withdraw From Space Station
Yuri Borisov, the new head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, told Russian President Vladimir Putin last week that a decision had been made to withdraw from operations of the International Space Station “after” the country’s current commitment to the station ends in 2024. However, Borisov later clarified there are no plans to withdraw immediately at that time, and NASA official Kathy Lueders told reporters that Russian officials had told NASA their plan is to continue participating in station operations until their own planned station is up and running, which Roscosmos currently expects will be in 2028. The International Space Station is operated as a partnership between the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency, and the Biden administration recently stated it intends to continue U.S. participation through 2030 as NASA develops plans to transfer its activities in low Earth orbit to commercial entities. Relations between Roscosmos and the other partners on the station have been tense following the Ukraine invasion, but to date the station’s operations have continued without disruption.
Senate Appropriators Release Fiscal Year 2023 Spending Proposals
The Senate Appropriations Committee released all 12 of its fiscal year 2023 spending bills last week. The committee proposes large funding boosts for federal science agencies, recommending double-digit percentage increases to the toplines of the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Science and Technology, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, mostly in alignment with proposals from the Biden administration and House appropriators. The Department of Energy’s R&D programs would also receive funding boosts under all the proposals on the table, though the Senate would provide much less than requested for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, while providing a significantly larger boost for the Office of Science. The Senate proposal also includes a 9% increase for early-stage Department of Defense R&D programs, which the administration has proposed to cut by 13%. The House passed a package of six appropriations bills on July 20, and its remaining bills have been approved by the House Appropriations Committee but not yet reached the floor. “Summary figures will be compiled in FYI’s Federal Science Budget Tracker.” All proposals are subject to significant changes because Democrats and Republicans have not yet reached a necessary deal on overall federal spending levels.
Administration Lists Programs Covered by Justice40 Initiative
The Biden administration took a major step toward implementing its Justice40 initiative last week, announcing hundreds of programs across federal agencies that the initiative will encompass. Established through an executive order Biden signed his first week in office, Justice40 requires that 40% of the overall benefits of federal investments in covered programs flow to disadvantaged communities. At the Department of Energy alone, over 140 programs are covered, including its education and workforce programs, its renewable energy, energy storage, nuclear energy, and carbon management R&D programs, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy. Many of the activities funded through last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are covered as well, including the large-scale demonstration projects supported by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. DOE Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Geri Richmond highlighted Justice40 and the department’s other equity efforts at a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology last week, saying, “Justice40 is everything that we do. It’s in every conversation that we have. It’s in every funding opportunity announcement that goes out.”
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, August 1
Tuesday, August 2
Wednesday, August 3
Thursday, August 4
Friday, August 5
No events.
Monday, August 8
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Opportunities DOE Seeks Biological and Environmental Research Office Director
The Department of Energy is seeking a director for its Office of Biological and Environmental Research, which supports a broad range of research on physical and biological systems. Responsibilities for the position include formulating budget requests, coordinating with other science agencies, and liaising with Congress and foreign research institutions. Applications are due Aug. 25.
NSF Hiring Chief DEI Officer
The National Science Foundation is hiring a chief diversity and inclusion officer, who will guide new and ongoing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs across the agency. Applications are due Aug. 9.
American Academy Hiring S&T Policy Program Director
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is hiring a program director for science, engineering, and technology, who will oversee the academy’s Commission on Climate Action and a portfolio of other policy and research initiatives. A doctorate in a related field or equivalent experience and at least five years of experience in project management or administration is required.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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