ARPA-H Launches Website, Social Media Account
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, has officially launched a website detailing focus areas, goals and initiatives to support research to drive biomedical research findings into health solutions. The new research initiative has also launched a Twitter account, with the intention of providing regular updates with current events and initiatives. To view the ARPA-H Twitter account, click here. ( Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research - Nov. 21, 2022)
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NIST Sketches Out Vision for Semiconductor Technology Center
Last week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided an update on its plans for the National Semiconductor Technology Center, the centerpiece of the $11 billion semiconductor R&D effort funded by the CHIPS and Science Act. NIST states that the center will operate as a public-private consortium and focus on “challenging projects with a time horizon beyond five years.” The center will include both “in-house” research capabilities and a network of directly funded and affiliated entities throughout the country. NIST anticipates the NSTC will be operated as an independent entity reporting to a governing board with members drawn from industry, academia, and government. The agency states its plans for the center will consider stakeholder input, including recent reports by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Semiconductor Industry Association. ( American Institute of Physics - Nov. 21, 2022)
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Energy Technology Nominees Defend Credentials
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing last week to consider President Biden’s nominees for three Department of Energy positions, including David Crane to be under secretary for infrastructure, the role responsible for stewarding funding DOE is receiving through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-WY) criticized Crane’s nomination, pointing to his efforts while CEO of NRG Energy to pivot rapidly toward renewables, leading to his dismissal in 2016 by the company’s board of directors. Committee Chair Joe Manchin (D-WV) responded more positively to Crane’s nomination, while seeking assurances about his support for coal power, carbon capture technology, and hydrogen derived from natural gas. Crane affirmed he sees coal as a “fundamental part of the energy mix in the United States,” . . . . ( American Institute of Physics - Nov. 21, 2022)
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Democrats Confront Bleak Odds for Immigration Deal before 2023
Democrats eager to find a legislative solution before 2023 for young undocumented immigrants are getting a wake-up call: They need votes from Republicans who don’t want to do it. As the GOP prepares to take the House, top Senate Democrats are desperately proclaiming that the post-election session is the best—and perhaps only—chance for Congress to act in the near term on deportation protections for the immigrants known as “Dreamers.” And with good reason: After the Senate passed a comprehensive bill in 2013, the Republican-controlled House never took it up. That recent history has Majority Leader Chuck Schumer proclaiming that “we want to get [it] done” and Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) saying that “the time to act is now.” But even those on the GOP side who once supported a fix for the deportation-protection program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, are now against it. ( Politico - Nov. 21, 2022)
***See also, the following related news item:
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ICE Needs More Data to Monitor Foreign Students Taking US Research, Watchdog Says
Immigration and Customs Enforcement may need to update one of its databases to capture more data about the risk of foreign entities obtaining U.S. technology via international students, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday. According to GAO, the federal government spends billions of dollars annually to conduct research at American universities. But some of this research may be performed by foreign students and scholars, which could pose a risk of foreign influence and American technology and research being transferred to foreign entities. While ICE maintains a database for some of these factors—the number of graduate students from countries that pose a concern for the transfer of technology and students studying STEM that are identified as more likely to be involved in sensitive research—it has not determined if this database needs to be updated to include other data related to these risks. As a result, GAO concluded that ICE’s data is likely incomplete. ( Nextgov - Nov. 16, 2022)
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Justice Department Asks Supreme Court to Let Student Debt Cancellation Proceed
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow its student loan relief plan to go forward, arguing that delaying enactment of a proposal to cancel billions of dollars in debt would leave borrowers in limbo. The Justice Department asked the court to reverse a decision this week by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, which granted a request by six Republican-led states to halt the plan. Under President Biden’s plan, federal borrowers with less than $125,000 in annual income could receive up to $20,000 in relief. In its filing, the department called the Eighth Circuit’s ruling “erroneous” and said it left borrowers unable to make financial decisions with “an accurate understanding of their future repayment obligations.” The states have argued that Mr. Biden’s proposal exceeds his executive authority and would deprive them of future tax revenue. ( The New York Times - Nov. 18, 2022)
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Defrauded Student Loan Borrowers in Line for Relief Are Still Waiting Months Later
After four years of waiting, the Education Department agreed [one particular student had] been defrauded by WyoTech, a career school owned by Corinthian Colleges, and was entitled to the full cancellation of his federal student loans. Since taking office, the Biden administration has approved $14.5 billion in student loan discharges for nearly 1.1 million borrowers defrauded by their colleges. Yet only 53,000 of those former students have actually had their debts cleared to date, according to data from the Education Department. The Biden administration inherited scores of petitions from former students of for-profit schools requesting the department cancel their debt under a statute known as “borrower defense to repayment.” Claims piled up at the department amid a series of college closures and the Trump administration’s efforts to delay and limit loan cancellation. Instead of piles of applications awaiting review, the department is now contending with a backlog of discharge requests and no clear time frame for a resolution . . . . ( The Washington Post - Nov. 21, 2022)
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