Senate GOP Wants to 'Slow' Down Bid to Fast-Track Endless Frontier Act

The public disparity between the timelines Schumer and Young envision for advancing the Endless Frontier Act adds a new wrinkle in talks about the contours of a broader infrastructure funding package because President Joe Biden included elements of the bill in his $2.3 trillion proposal (see 2103310064), lobbyists told us. The Endless Frontier Act, first filed last year, would redesignate the National Science Foundation as the National Science and Technology Foundation and establish a “Technology Directorate” with $100 billion in funding to advance 10 technology areas. It also aims to address semiconductor shortages (see 2006010011).

A bipartisan group of 20 senators, meanwhile, is eyeing a counterproposal to Biden’s infrastructure proposal. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the group is in the “early stages” of forming a proposal and plans a call Thursday on its work. Senate Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., indicated a bipartisan compromise package of $600 billion-$800 billion is possible and would include broadband funding. Capito and Senate Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker of Mississippi are among 11 Republicans planning a news conference Thursday on infrastructure.

Schumer said Wednesday he plans to move toward a floor vote next week on a bipartisan water infrastructure measure in what appears to be a test of Republicans’ willingness to advance elements of a larger package. Democrats have been floating the possibility of using the budget reconciliation process to enact infrastructure legislation if Republicans don’t agree on a deal (see 2103160001). “If Republicans let us get on the bill, we can work out a process to have bipartisan debate and amendments,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “But if the Republican minority prevents the Senate from even debating some of these common-sense proposals, we’ll have to try to move forward without them.”

“I think there are Republicans who want to do something” on infrastructure, but “the question is whether” enough are willing to strike a deal with Democrats to clear the regular 60-vote cloture hurdle, said Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in an interview. “Nobody” involved in the Monday White House meeting she and Wicker attended on Biden’s infrastructure proposal (see 2104120060) “said we didn’t need infrastructure investment.” Cantwell said she hasn’t set a timeline for Senate Commerce to mark up its portion of an infrastructure package. It will happen “soon, but you’ve got to keep talking to people and see what they’re willing to do,” she said.

Wicker told us he sees some hope that a deal will eventually happen based on what he heard during the meeting with Biden and ongoing conversations between the White House and congressional GOP leadership. “There is a sense in the early conversations among Republicans and Democrats that there’s not going to be lockstep adherence to a single plan,” Wicker said. “There’s got to be some give and take” because a number of things in the Biden proposal “are unacceptable.”

Differing Timelines

“A lot of my colleagues are approaching me” with their concerns about fast-tracking the Endless Frontier Act and are “indicating that we need to slow this thing down,” Young told reporters Wednesday. Schumer told the Senate Democratic caucus Tuesday he wanted a vote by the end of April on an American Competitiveness Act package that would include the text of the Endless Frontier Act as its “centerpiece.” Senate Republicans “want to grow comfortable with” proposed revisions to the bill, Young said. “We have to get this right.”

Schumer “and I continue to work out what I regard as bridgeable differences” on those changes, Young said. Those differences are said to include a push by Schumer for language guaranteeing that construction workers building new semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the U.S. get a prevailing wage, lobbyists said. Young and other Republicans oppose that provision. Schumer unsuccessfully attempted to put similar language in the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act text included in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2101030002).

Senate Commerce’s timeline for marking up the Endless Frontier Act will depend on where Schumer and Young are in their process for filing the measure, Cantwell told us. She wasn’t sure whether the committee will hold a markup of the measure as part of or separate from the rest of its portion of the infrastructure package. Schumer reportedly pushed the committee to mark up the Endless Frontier Act next week, lobbyists said.

Young said during the Senate Commerce hearing that he expects “in the coming weeks … we’ll have a product that we can all rally around” as a counter to Chinese advances in emerging tech. He later called the U.S. competition with China for dominance in developing emerging technologies a “Sputnik moment” on par with the U.S.-Soviet Union competition in the late 1950s and 1960s for dominance in space. “We're divided in many respects as a country,” Young said. "I think we can be united in this effort.”

Mixed Opinions

Wicker emphasized during the hearing that the measure “should not detract from” the existing NSF’s “core mission of advancing basic scientific knowledge” and sought “sufficient guardrails” to protect it. “We will not beat China by copying its strategy” of ramping up applied research into specific technologies, he said: There’s a “valley of death" separating research and developing specific technologies. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., later questioned whether the measure would detract from NSF’s goal of pursuing “fundamental or curiosity-based research.”

Former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Kelvin Droegemeier said NSF can pursue “complementary” goals of applied and curiosity-based research. “Know there are some who fear that the technology could overtake the fundamental research" at NSF, he said. "But I think we can do this in a careful, thoughtful way to where they're much more mutually reinforcing." Droegemeier believes NSF divisions besides the proposed Technology Directorate should also be pursuing more applied research.

Other witnesses delivered mixed opinions on the Endless Frontier Act’s goals. “Moving research from the lab to the market is complex and is best suited for America's small high-tech sector,” said Camgian CEO Gary Butler. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Office of Open Learning Senior Director William Bonvillian disagreed there would be a “culture clash” within NSF with the addition of the Technology Directorate: “We have a long history of basic research working alongside use-inspired applied research. The cultures can be complementary.”

Wicker wants the Endless Frontier Act to ensure more even distribution of R&D funding across the U.S., rather than concentrating it in California, Massachusetts and other tech-heavy jurisdictions. “I'm really not interested in advancing a bill that doesn't address this disparity,” he said. Cantwell responded that she believes “the information-age economy should take place everywhere.” Development “and information can flow to lots of places" and so "should the R&D” money, she said.

Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune of South Dakota was among the Republicans who dinged the lack of available Endless Frontier Act text. “I would've appreciated the chance to review an updated version of the legislation before this hearing,” he said. “As I understand it, there are substantial changes from the version introduced last Congress." He wants some of the measure’s funding to be allocated to South Dakota.

Other Republicans criticized the bill based on what’s already available. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said he has “serious doubts that direct government payments to universities is the best answer to meet China's advancing technology, or an efficient return on investment for taxpayers.” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah believes “we should not abandon” free-market principles in a bid “to beat China at China's own game. We will lose that effort.”

Cantwell and other Democrats were far more supportive of the Endless Frontier Act. “Research and development is really a bipartisan issue,” Cantwell said. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana wondered whether “the amount we're spending on R&D right now is adequate, or are we behind the curve from the beginning?” Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts wants Schumer and Young to insert the text of his Research Investment to Spark the Economy Act, which would allocate $25 billion to fund research projects scuttled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.