Outlook on Remaining Legislative Year and Pending Legislation

Democrats are nearing the end of the 117th Congress and are looking to show significant progress ahead of the November mid-term elections in advancing major legislation with significant impacts for defense, health care, and science and technology issues.  Democrats and Republicans remain cautiously hopeful that negotiations over several major packages that generally have bipartisan support will result in key policy achievements with resonance among both parties.

With very few working days left in both chambers before Congress adjourns ahead of the midterms, the agenda of must-pass and priority legislation is daunting.  Congress is currently working on funding the government through annual appropriations, a slimmed down innovation package centered around providing funding for semiconductor development, setting priorities for the Department of Defense through the annual National Defense Authorization Act, outlining the structure and direction of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, and reauthorizing crucial programs such as the Food and Drug Administration’s User Fees and the popular Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs.

 

SIOP and DOJ COPS Office Sign MOU

This month, SIOP signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).  The MOU is the first the DOJ COPS office has signed with a scientific society and is a product of the SIOP Policing Initiative’s on-going engagement in the evidence-based policing reform policy space.  During the term of the MOU, SIOP and DOJ COPS will work together to increase the knowledge and application of I-O in law enforcement to help cultivate more safe and effective law enforcement workplaces.  Anticipated activities between SIOP and the DOJ COPS office include bringing in SIOP experts to speak with DOJ employees and law enforcement representatives, contributing to DOJ COPS podcasts and newsletter articles, and potentially providing opportunities to have SIOP experts serve as peer reviewers for DOJ COPS studies.

 

Congress Begins Work on Annual Funding Legislation

On June 28, the House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2023 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill by a vote of 31 to 24.  The bill would provide the National Science Foundation (NSF) with $9.6 billion, $793.2 million or 9.0 percent above the FY 2022 enacted level but below the president’s budget request of $10.5 billion.  The bill would provide increases to many programs of interest across its portfolio compared to FY 2022 funding levels, but in many cases, these increases fall short of the growth proposed in the president’s FY 2023 budget request.

The report accompanying the funding bill emphasizes much of the same themes as prior committee reports, such as the Committee’s support of NSF infrastructure investments to expand scientific understanding, inspire students, promote priority research topics while sustaining core investments, and broaden participation and ensure fairness and inclusion in the scientific enterprise.  The report also encourages NSF to collaborate on research on algorithmic bias in AI, machine learning and intelligent systems and its impacts to better understand impacts related to discrimination and bias.  While Congress does not break out specific funding amounts for most individual directorates, the report reinforces support for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences and notes the importance of this research.

The Senate, which released their bills on July 28, would provide NSF with a much larger increase of $10.3 billion or 17.0 percent above FY 2022 levels, hewing much more closely to the president’s budget request.  While the House has approved half of its annual funding bills this month through a “minibus” package, the remaining six, including CJS still await approval by the full House.  As in past years, the Senate is not expected to go through a formal markup and passage process and will likely begin negotiating with the House directly.  Lewis-Burke’s full analysis of the FY 2023 House CJS bill can be found here.

Publication Type
Washington InfO

Topic
Government Relations