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STEM Legislation Moves Through the House

By Kasey White posted 07-17-2014 15:39

  

After months of contentious hearings and markups on legislation to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act, several bills by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee advanced through the House on July 14.  Although the bills are not a comprehensive update of the legislation, they represent areas within the bill that have broad bipartisan support. The bills include:

  • The STEM Education Act of 2014 (H.R. 5031) strengthens ongoing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education efforts at NSF and includes computer science in the definition of STEM.

     

  • The Research and Development Efficiency Act (HR 5056) seeks to reduce the administrative burden on researchers, a subject of a recent hearing and National Science Board report. H.R. 5056 establishes a working group of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) to review federal regulations affecting research universities in order to “harmonize, streamline and eliminate duplicative Federal regulations and reporting requirements.”

     

  • The International Science and Technology Cooperation Act of 2014 (H.R. 5029) would establish a body under the NSTC  “to identify and coordinate international science and technology cooperation that can strengthen the U.S. science and technology enterprise, improve economic and national security and support U.S. foreign policy goals.”

 The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on July 16 on federal R&D that may influence its version of an America COMPETES reauthorization, but no drafts have yet been released.

 -- Kasey White

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