Members of Congress Oppose EPSCoR Funding Allocation in Bipartisan Innovation Act

A bipartisan and bicameral group of Members of Congress recently sent a letter to Conference Committee Leaders – Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK) regarding negotiations to reconcile the differences between the America COMPETES Act (H.R. 4521) and the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USCIA) (S. 1260). According to the letter, Members of Congress oppose provisions in the Senate-passed USICA bill that “would set-aside 20 percent of the total NSF and DOE budgets for the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) activities.” The letter says, “Arbitrarily walling off a sizable percentage of a science agency’s budget from a sizable majority of the country’s research institutions would fundamentally reduce the entire nation’s scientific capacity and damage the research profiles of existing institutions – contrary to the goals of both USICA and the COMPETES Act.”