America COMPETES Act Passes Congress

Dec 23, 2010

On December 17th, the U.S. Senate passed by unanimous consent an amended version of the America COMPETES Act (H.R. 5116). The amended bill reauthorizes funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Department of Energy's Office of Science (DOE/OS) but differs from the bill that passed the House back in May in several ways. The revised COMPETES bill reduces the number of years authorized from five to three and also lowers authorization funding levels over those three years. The House passed the revised version on December 21 and it now awaits the President's signature. A chart that details funding levels in the various versions of the bill is available on the AAAS website.

http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/COMPETES/