Legislation News
President Signs America COMPETES Act
August 13, 2007
On August 2, Congress approved the conference report for the America COMPETES Act, the comprehensive competitiveness and innovation package that was prompted by the National Academies’ 2005 “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report. This legislation, which the House passed by a vote of 367-57 and the Senate approved by unanimous consent, was signed into law by the President on August 9.
The final conference report included several key components of the Democrats’ “Innovation Agenda” and the President’s “American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI),” which are aimed at improving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, expanding and supporting the national corps of math and science teachers, and increasing U.S. investment in basic research.
In total, the COMPETES Act authorizes $33.6 billion over fiscal years 2008-2010 for STEM education programs across the federal government. Specifically, this new law:
- authorizes doubling the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF) from $5.6 billion to $11.2 billion over the next 5 years, and doubling the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science budget to more than $5 billion;
- creates new scholarships to recruit graduate students in STEM fields and train them as K-12 math and science teachers, and provides in-service training to current math and science teachers to improve content knowledge and teaching skills;
- establishes an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) within the Department of Energy (based on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) model) to promote high-risk, high-payoff research and development of clean energy technologies.
Although the legislation authorizes billions for new research and other innovation initiatives, the actual dollar amounts ultimately allocated for these new programs will be determined by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Thankfully, the overwhelming passage of the America COMPETES Act indicates that Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle understand the urgency of these measures and will continue to support them when it comes time to fund these programs.
In April 2005, UCLA alumni, faculty and staff traveled to Washington, D.C. to advocate for increased federal investment in basic research and math and science education. We were pleased to see that our two California Senators and nearly every member of the Los Angeles delegation in the House voted for this bill (for a complete list, please see: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll802.xml).
|
