Department of Energy Archives

Computing Research Policy Blog

The Computing Research Association (or CRA) has been involved in shaping public policy of relevance to computing research for more than two decades. More recently the CRA Government Affairs program has enhanced its efforts to help the members of the computing research community contribute to the public debate knowledgeably and effectively.

Tag Archive: Department of Energy

Final FY20 Appropriations: Mostly Increases for Research but There is Some Bad News

December 18, 2019/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Information Technology R&D Highlights, Research /by Brian Mosley

Just in time for the calendar year 2020, and almost three months after the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) began, Congress is finally finishing up its work on the Federal budget with two Minibuses of all the appropriations legislation. For the research community, it’s mostly good news but there are a few clouds in the sky: the National Science Foundation will see very modest increases under the bill, and the defense research accounts are essentially flat-funded.

Appropriations Update: House FY20 Energy & Water Bill is out and there are Reasons for Optimism

July 11, 2019/In: Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Research /by Brian Mosley

In June, the House of Representatives passed their version of the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) Energy and Water appropriations bill, including increases for some key computing programs at Department of Energy. This bill contains the budgets for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE SC) and ARPA-E, as well as funding for the Exascale Computing R&D program, for which DOE is the lead federal agency. While the increases are probably positive news for the computing research community, uncertainty about overall Federal spending levels likely puts these specific appropriations levels in doubt. Nevertheless, the bills at least send a signal about the areas House Democrats see as priorities for the Federal government in FY20.

Fiscal Year 2019 Update: Most of the Budget is Done…Except for what’s Most Important for Researchers

September 19, 2018/In: Funding, FY19 Appropriations, General /by Brian Mosley

It’s been a busy September from a Congressional appropriations perspective. As of this writing, nine of the twelve appropriations bills have passed, including the Defense, Energy and Water, and Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) bills – a productive pace not seen from Congress in many years. While it’s good these were passed into law, and they do cover some important research agencies, left unfinished is one key bill of concern to the computing research community — the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations bill, which includes funding for NSF, NIST, NOAA and NASA; more on that in a moment. Until then, here are the details of the pieces of legislative that have passed.

Appropriations Update: Department of Energy does well in FY2019 Bills

June 14, 2018/In: Funding, FY19 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

[Editor’s Note: This post was written by CRA’s new Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2018, Amita Shukla.] Continuing CRA’s tracking of the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) appropriations process, we pick up with coverage of the Energy and Water Appropriations bills. This is the annual appropriations bill that funds the Department of Energy (DOE) and all […]

Department of Energy FY 2019 Request: Good for Computing but with Some Asterisks

March 13, 2018/In: Funding, FY19 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

Last month, President Trump released his budget request for Fiscal Year 2019. As we have done in years past, the CRA Policy Blog will be doing a series of posts on the assorted agency budgets that are important to the computing research community. In this post we highlight the Department of Energy (DOE).

House Passes DOE Energy Research and Innovation Act

January 25, 2017/In: COMPETES, Policy /by Brian Mosley

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 589, the Department of Energy Research and Innovation Act. Predominantly a policy bill for DOE, the Act provides direction for the Department on, “basic science research, nuclear energy research and development (R&D), research coordination and priorities, and reforms to streamline national lab management.”

Department of Energy FY 2017 Request: Mixed Bag for Computing

February 15, 2016/In: Funding, FY17 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

On Tuesday, February 9th, President Obama released the last budget request of his administration. As we have done in years past, the CRA Policy Blog will be doing a series of posts on the assorted agency budgets that are important to the computing research community. In this post we highlight the Department of Energy (DOE).

First look at Senate COMPETES bill; S.1398 is good for research but will it move?

June 18, 2015/In: Funding, Policy /by kayla

[With this post, CRA welcomes Kayla Holston, our new Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellow, who will be working with CRA policy staff this summer. Kayla is a rising second-year Rodman Scholar at the University of Virginia, pursuing majors in biomedical engineering and cognitive science. She’s particularly interested in computing as it relates to neuroscience research, […]

A Fruitless Markup on Department of Energy R&D Act of 2014

June 26, 2014/In: Research /by Brian Mosley

[Editor’s Note: This post marks the debut of CRA’s new Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2014, Yiyang Shen. Yiyang is a sophomore at NYU, with an interest in Mathematics and Computer Science, and will spend this summer with CRA working on science policy issues, including tracking the progress of efforts to reauthorize the Department of […]