Senate Introduces “COMPETES” Reauthorization Bill
On June 22, Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO), Gary Peters (D-MI), John Thune (R-SD), and Bill Nelson (D-FL) introduced the bipartisan American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (S. 3084), which is the Senate’s version of America COMPETES Act reauthorization legislation. As COSSA has been reporting, the America COMPETES Act is legislation originally enacted in 2007 to bolster U.S. investment in basic scientific research at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal science agencies. The House’s efforts to reauthorize COMPETES took a negative turn in recent years, resulting in legislation that would decimate federal funding for social science research and dismantle the peer review process as we currently know it. In contrast, the bill introduced in the Senate last week looks to support—not undercut—NSF’s grant-making infrastructure.
The Senate bill is scheduled to be marked up by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on June 29. Read on for highlights of S. 3084.