On Wednesday, May 20th The House of Representatives passed H.R. 880 entitled the “American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2015” by a vote of 274-145 and H.R. 1806 entitled the “America Competes Reauthorization Act” by a vote of 217-205. The legislation would make permanent the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit and authorize approximately $33 billion in funding for federal scientific research and research grants between fiscal years 2016 through 2020. This funding would be divided amongst the National Science Foundation; the Office of Science and Technology Policy; the National Institute of Standards and Technology; along with select offices at the U.S. Department of Energy. While the bill does not lift the existing funding level for the agencies, it will nonetheless help to promote “fundamental discovery science” by directing more funding to areas such as basic energy research at the Department of Energy and other critical scientific research at the National Science Foundation, according to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Republican majority.

As a caveat, both the House of Representatives and the Senate must still agree upon a unified bill to send to the President’s desk for signature into law. For complete legislative updates from Capitol Hill and coverage of the latest statutory, administrative, and judicial interpretations please follow Peter J. Scalise at: http://pragermetis.com/about-us/our-team/peter-j-scalise