Senate Passes Massive Research Bill

Last week, the Senate passed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) on a 68-32 vote. The legislation includes robust authorization language for the National Science Foundation and NASA, and also creates a new technology directorate within the NSF. Also included are research security provisions that are of significant concern to institutions of higher education due to the duplicative or unclear nature of the language incorporated in the bill. USICA now moves to the House for consideration, where it faces an uncertain path forward. Given the scale of the legislation, the House will have to pass several smaller bills to advance all the components of the USICA legislation to the White House. As that process unfolds, Federal Relations is working with the Arizona delegation to advocate for effective policies to address growing national concerns over foreign influence in the American research enterprise.