Few dispute the importance of research and advanced computing technology to American competitiveness, but there is disagreement about the role of the government in funding such efforts. Currently two bills are making their way through the legislative process as potential successors to the America COMPETES Acts of 2007 and 2010 (which were passed by President George W. Bush and President Obama respectively).

They are briefly summarized as follows:

The House version, H.R. 1806: America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2015, was introduced by Lamar Smith (R-TX) on April 15, 2015. This bill passed in the House on May 20, 2015, and has gone on to the Senate for consideration. It seeks “to provide for technological innovation through the prioritization of Federal investment in basic research, fundamental scientific discovery, and development to improve the competitiveness of the United States, and for other purposes.”

The Senate version, S. 1398: Energy Title of America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2015, was introduced by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on May 20, 2015 and is currently awaiting consideration by the Senate Energy Committee. The purpose of this bill is “to extend, improve, and consolidate energy research and development programs, and for other purposes.” This bill sets policy and recommends funding amounts, but does not have the power to authorize funds.

The Computing Research Policy has looked at both of these bills and provided summaries of their core components along with their analysis in two separate blog posts.

As Kayla Holston, CRA’s new Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellow, explains the Senate bill, S. 1398, sets funding policy for the Office of Science (SC) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for the next three years. The bill calls for an increase in funding for both of these agencies at levels that are aligned with the 2007 and 2010 COMPETES Acts. It also proposes to curtail redundant programs at the DOE.

From the blog:

The funding numbers for both the DOE SC and ARPA-E are quite good and are true successors to early versions of COMPETES. As our readers will recall, the DOE SC is home to the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, a program that encompasses much of the Department’s computing research. S.1398 calls for the DOE SC to be authorized at $5.271 billion for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, a 2.7 percent increase over the pervious [sic] Fiscal Year budget ($5.131 billion for FY15)—it’s also worth noting that this is almost identical to the $5.247 billion authorized (but never appropriated) for FY11 in the 2010 COMPETES Act. After FY16, the proposed funding for the SC continues to exhibit an upward trend, with about a 4 percent increase each year:

FY17: $5.485 billion
FY18: $5.704 billion
FY19: $5.932 billion
FY20: $6.178 billion

It is important to note that, while the proposed FY16 funding is greater than what was appropriated in FY15, it is still below President Obama’s requested budget for FY16 ($5.34 billion).

S. 1398 proposes a similar funding pattern for ARPA-E. The Agency was authorized for $300 million in the original 2007 version of COMPETES, but has been mostly flat funded since its establishment. In S. 1398, Senator Alexander proposes a yearly ~4 percent increase in funding, aligning the numbers with what was originally proposed in the COMPETES Acts:

FY16: $291.2 million
FY17: $303.3 million
FY18: $314.7 million
FY19: $327.3 million
FY20: $340.6 million

Holston writes that the Senate version “represents a marked change of approach from the DOE provisions in the House version of the America COMPETES Act Reauthorization.”

H.R. 1806 sets out funding levels for NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and NIST, as well as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for FY 2016 and FY 2017. The bill has been widely criticized by the science community, including CRA, which in a letter to the bill’s sponsor, wrote “[W]e were disappointed to note that the bill, by flat-funding science agencies in the second year of authorizations, fails to provide for steady and real growth in the Federal investment in research, something we believe is critical to our Nation’s ability to compete, prosper and be secure in the coming years and decades.”

S. 1398 currently enjoys the bipartisan support of seven cosponsors (4D, 3R), while H.R. 1806 claims 10 cosponsors all from the Republican side of the aisle.