Computing Research Policy Blog

Posts categorized under: Funding

Tale of Two Bills: Competing Visions of NSF’s Future Make Their Way Through Congress

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Over the last two months, competing visions of the future of the National Science Foundation have been making their way through the House and Senate. And much like the famous opening line of Tale of Two Cities, their paths could not be more dissimilar. On the House side, the National Science Foundation for the Future Act has made deliberative and bipartisan progress through the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Meanwhile, on the Senate side, the Endless Frontier Act has been introduced; pulled, reworked, and reintroduced; heavily amended during a marathon Senate Commerce Committee hearing; and is now before the full Senate undergoing another round of amendments. Very different paths.

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Senator Schumer Reintroduces Endless Frontier Act, Latest Proposal for Major Reorganization of the National Science Foundation

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Yesterday, Senator Schumer (D-NY), the Senate Majority Leader, along with Senator Young (R-IN) and a bipartisan group of 10 other Senators, reintroduced the Endless Frontier Act (EFA), legislation that would authorize $100 billion in new funding for the National Science Foundation and make the agency responsible for maintaining the country’s global leadership in innovation. There is also a bipartisan version introduced in the House. Regular readers will recall that this bill was introduced last year and its reintroduction has been anticipated.

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President Biden Releases His “Skinny” Budget; Topline Numbers for Multiple Science Agencies Do Well; NSF Gets Over 19% Increase!

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Earlier today the Biden Administration released a high-level overview of their discretionary budget request for Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22). Nicknamed a “skinny budget,” due to the fact that it only contains topline numbers for key departments and agencies and does not have many details on specific program requests, it does provide a look into the priorities of the new Administration. And from what we see in this request, research agencies across the federal government will do quite well under the Biden Administration’s plan.

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Research Funds Included in Emergency Legislation; Heads to President for Signing Into Law

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On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021; the $1.9 trillion bill that is meant to provide additional relief to the country to address the impacts of the ongoing COVID pandemic. As the Senate approved the measure on Saturday, the bill now heads to President Biden for signing into law.

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Artificial Intelligence is Critical to National Security, Defense, U.S. Economy, and Worthy of Significant New Investment, Congressionally-chartered Commission Argues in Final Report 

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The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a congressionally-chartered committee charged with reviewing AI and related technologies and making recommendations to address U.S. national security and defense needs, today released its final report, endorsing significant new investments in AI research, strategies for building the AI workforce, and guidance for using AI in warfare while upholding U.S. democratic values.

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NSF and NIST Likely to Receive Emergency Funding in Latest Pandemic Relief Legislation

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In a piece written by Jeffrey Mervis at Science, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are expected to receive emergency funding as part of the COVID relief bill that is moving through Congress. Specifically, NSF would receive $650 million and NIST $150 million in a one-time budget allocations from the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Both agencies would be required to use the funds to help the nation, and specifically the science research community, recover from the impacts of the pandemic, as per the terms of the overall relief package. According to Mervis, the money for NSF is, “likely to be spent on more research on pandemic-related topics, as well as more support for educating the next generation of scientists and engineers,” while, “the funds for NIST…are expected to bolster its network of manufacturing research institutes.” While a far cry from the $26 billion that the higher education community is seeking in emergency relief, this money will be much needed help for the country’s research community. We’ll be watching the relief package as it makes its way through Congress; the expectation is that the bill will come up for a final vote some time in early-to-mid March. Please keep checking back for updates.

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FY21 Update: Still Waiting for a Final Budget & Will Have to Wait Another Week (at least)

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The calendar year of 2020 is quickly ending, but Congress hasn’t finished its work on the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) budget, which technically started back on October 1st. Our last update back in November was about the Senate publicly releasing their budget bills, with an eye to wrapping up the process on December 11th (AKA: today). Unfortunately, not much has happened since November.

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FY21 Update: Senate Releases Numbers in Preparation for Budget Endgame in December

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When last we left the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) budget process, we were worried about a potentially stalled continuing resolution at the end of September. Luckily, no one wanted to shut down the government just before the November Election; a CR was passed and signed into law. The CR created a new deadline to get a permanent budget into place, which is December 11th. Now with the election behind us, and hoping to jumpstart the process, yesterday the Senate Appropriations Committee released its slate of appropriations bills. Let’s get into the details.

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