House Passes Bills to Bolster Scientific Research, Breaking With Senate
The House on Monday passed two bipartisan bills aimed at bolstering research and development programs in the United States, setting up a battle with the Senate over how best to invest in scientific innovation to strengthen American competitiveness. The bills are the House’s answer to the sprawling Endless Frontier Act that the Senate overwhelmingly passed this month, which would sink unprecedented federal investments into a slew of emerging technologies in a bid to compete with China. But lawmakers who drafted the House measures took a different approach, calling for a doubling of funding over the next five years for traditional research initiatives at the National Science Foundation and a 7 percent increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Science. The contrast reflected concerns among House lawmakers that the Senate bill placed an outsize and overly prescriptive focus on developing nascent technologies and on replicating Beijing’s aggressive moves to gain industrial dominance. Instead, the lawmakers argued, the United States should pour more resources into its own proven research and development abilities. ( The New York Times - June 28, 2021)
***See also, the following related news item:
- U.S. House Backs Higher Spending Levels for NSF and DOE Science - Science Magazine - June 29, 2021
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Tax Reforms for Taxing College Costs
A panel of witnesses testified before members of the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday about expanding access to higher education, primarily focusing on how existing policies —like the Pell Grant and higher education tax credits —could be reformed to better serve the students most in need. The intent of the virtual subcommittee hearing was to examine how the powerful, tax-writing Ways and Means Committee could do more to help students, said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey, in his opening statement. Susan Dynarski, a professor of public policy, education and economics at the University of Michigan, said that current higher education tax incentives aren’t reaching the right students. Congress should also end the taxability of scholarships and grant aid and re-examine the tax policies surrounding charitable giving, testified Susan Whealler Johnston, president and CEO of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Tax policies should be strengthened to encourage giving, and policies that discourage giving and take charitable resources away from higher education —like the tax on net investment income —should be reversed. ( Inside Higher Ed - June 30, 2021)
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Addressing Basic Needs Insecurity Through the BASIC Act
After talking with students and learning about how many of them struggle to meet their basic needs, [Representative Norma Torres, a Democrat from California,] introduced the Basic Assistance for Students in College Act, or BASIC Act, in the House in 2019, with then senator Kamala Harris taking the lead on the bill in the Senate. An updated version of the legislation was introduced by Torres at the beginning of June, with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California, picking up the bill in the Senate. The BASIC Act would establish a $1 billion grant program to help institutions of higher education identify and meet the needs of their students, including food, housing, transportation, childcare and technology. It authorizes $40 million for two-year planning grants to help colleges and universities research and plan to address their students’ unmet basic needs and provides $960 million for five-year implementation grants for institutions to develop a basic needs infrastructure. ( Inside Higher Ed - June 29, 2021)
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