America Competes Act: Programs, Funding and Developments

On August 2, 2007, Congress passed the America COMPETES Act (H.R. 2272), which the President signed into law (P.L. 110-69) on August 9, 2007. The act responds to concerns that the United States may not be able to compete economically with other nations in the future due to insufficient investment today in science and technology research and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development. A similar concern had led President Bush to announce the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) in January 2006 during his State of the Union address. The America COMPETES Act authorises an increase in the nation's investment in science and engineering research and in STEM education from kindergarten to graduate school and postdoctoral education. The act also establishes the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and Discovery Science and Engineering Innovation Institutes. (Appendix A provides a summary of the act's programs.) The act authorises increases in funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratories, and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science over FY2008-FY2010. If maintained, the increases would double the budgets of those agencies over seven years. The Administration's ACI also proposes a doubling-path, but for over ten years for physical sciences and engineering research at the three agencies. Within DOE, ARPA-E is designed to support transformational energy technology research projects with the goal of enhancing the economic and energy security of the United States, based on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Administration and others support the conceptual goal of ARPA-E, but questions whether or not the DARPA model can be used for the energy sector, and has concerns about it potentially redirecting funds from current DOE research activities. ARPA-E proponents counter that ARPA-E is needed to facilitate the energy marketplace by accelerating research that will bridge the gap between basic research and industrial development. At the heart of the America COMPETES Act is the goal of maintaining the United States as the leader in the global economy. Three broad trends influence today's globalisation of the economy. The first is technology, which has sharply reduced the cost of communication and transportation that previously divided markets. The second is a dramatic increase in the world supply of labour producing goods and services traded internationally. The third is government policies that have reduced barriers to trade and investment.